Journey Man
by illman
Summary: Torchwood runs into zombies. Jack runs into the Doctor. The Doctor and Rose run into the Daleks. COMPLETE.
1. Prologue

Title: Journey Man  
Author: hexicode  
Fandom/pairing (if appropriate): Doctor Who, Torchwood  
Summary: _Torchwood runs into zombies. Jack runs into the Doctor. The Doctor and Rose run into the Daleks._  
Rating: technically all ages, but maybe a bit too violent for the kiddies  
Warnings: violence, blood, AU  
Disclaimers: The characters and settings aren't mine. No profit is being made, this is for entertainment only  
A/N: This story was written during NaNoWriMo 2007. It is finished and will be posted as it is edited and proofread. Set directly after the episode Dalek and somewhere shortly after the Torchwood pilot.

oOo

Mom, Mom? Can I go outside to the swings? Please, Mom. Please."

Anne's mother, Janet, turned away from her plate for a moment. "Anne," she said, looking at her daughter. "You know you aren't allowed in the back yard on your own. Wait until your father and I have finished. Maybe he'll go outside with you for a while then."

"But, look." Anne indicated the window. "I wouldn't be alone there. There's already another girl there. I think she might be alone, Mom."

Her mother looked outside and indeed there was a little girl with dark hair, wearing jeans and a pink sweater, sitting on the swings.

"It's all right." Tess, their waitress, had noticed their exchange and came over. "That's my daughter out there. I always tell her to stay inside while she waits for me to finish my shift, but she never listens. I'm sure she wouldn't mind some company," Tess said smiling at Anne.

"Can I?" Anne asked, balancing on the balls of her feet. She was bored with all the eating, drinking and the interminably long walks in the countryside her parents undertook – glad that they were finally away from Cardiff with all the cars, people and noises. It wasn't so bad as far as Anne was concerned, where they lived was perfect. Their flat was a little small, but all her friends lived close by, she'd just started school this fall and she didn't want to leave. But her parents kept saying how they wanted to move to the countryside. Every time they spent a long weekend out, Anne was afraid they were going to stay for good.

"Okay, you can go. But don't wander off alone," her mother agreed.

"Promise. Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad." Anne skipped out of the room, leaving her parents to enjoy their meal in peace.

oOo

The girl on the swings was pretending not to notice her. Anne walked up to her, waved tentatively, but the girl simply stared right through her. If that was what the girls out here were like, Anne certainly wouldn't want to live here. She didn't understand why her parents liked it so much.

Anne sat down on the swing set next to her and kicked herself off with her foot, showing her that she wasn't the only one who could ignore people.

"I'm Anne," she said after they had been swinging in silence next to one another.

"That's a stupid name," the girl replied, turned and pulled out her tongue at Anne.

"What's your name then?" Anne asked, ready for a challenge.

"Maryan."

"That's not a name," Anne protested. "You made that up. What is your real name?" Anne asked.

"It's my real name." The girl stopped swinging and looked straight at Anne. There was something about her that made Anne uneasy and she wondered if that was what her mother meant when she had told her not to talk to strangers. But she had been allowed to go out and play.

"Then what does it mean? It has to mean something or it's not a real name." Anne challenged her, still a bit wary of the other girl, but ready to show her that she wasn't stupid either.

"It means 'Lone Saviour'," the girl said in a hushed voice, as if she was telling a great secret.

"That's not true. You're making this up," Anne replied, satisfied and turned back to swinging,

"Want to see something really cool?"

"What is it? Anne put a foot to the ground to stop the motion of the swing and turned around. Maryan rummaged in the pocket of her sweater and pulled out something enclosed in her hand. Slowly, holding it for Anne to see, she opened her hand. In the palm of Maryan's hand was a heap of fine green powder. But it wasn't just ordinary green – it shimmered in all shades of green anyone could possibly have imagined. Tiny green flickers of light rose into the air around them. It looked like they were dancing. "I bet you don't think that is stupid." Maryan grinned.

"No. It's wonderful." It was the prettiest thing Anne had ever seen. Green was her favorite colour, but she had never seen such a beautiful green. And it was changing from one shade into the other even while she was looking at it. Every shade of green was more beautiful than the last.

"Do you want me to show you where I found it?" Maryan suddenly closed her fist and shoved it back into her pocket. "I found it in the woods. Want to see?"

Anne very much wanted to see where the green magic came from.

"But it's a secret. You can never tell anyone. Promise?"

"I swear, I won't tell," Anne promised excitedly.

Her mother had told her not to wander off alone, but she wasn't really alone, she was with Maryan. Anne decided that it would be all right and followed Maryan towards the dark edge of the forest.

oOo

Anne was sweating hard despite the cold night that had fallen over the silent countryside. The shovel was much too big for her, almost as tall as she was, but she didn't pause once in her task. Shovel after shovel of freshly upturned Earth landed on top of the tiny body. Once all the excavated soil was neatly covering the shallow grave, Anne carelessly tossed the shovel to the ground and went around to the house. Her work done, she sat down on the front porch waiting for her parents. It was getting colder as darkness settled over the hostel and its vast grounds.

Anne rubbed her hands along her upper arms, as if trying to get arm, but really only succeeded in smearing mud all over her bloody clothes.

When a pair of headlights appeared on the country road leading up to the hostel and slowly started making its way towards her, Anne knew her parents had found her.

She had checked every room inside, but they hadn't been there. Ducking out of the way of the headlights for a moment to make sure she wasn't being watched, she pulled the knife out of its hiding place in a nearby shrub. She wiped the blade on the grass and carefully put the weapon in the light green backpack her mother had bought her for the weekend trip.

Anne could now recognize the car as a blue station wagon, just like the one her parents drove. The car haphazardly pulled into one of the parking spaces in front of the hostel. Before the motor had gone silent, her mother had already jumped out and came running towards her. Her make-up with ruined; she had obviously been crying.

"Anne! Where you been? We have been looking everywhere for you! You shouldn't have just walked off. You know we would get worried." Her mother pulled her into a tight embrace. Anne could feel her mother's body shaking with relief and allowed herself to be held.

"I should be suing the place. Calling themselves family-friendly, but there isn't even anyone answering the phone," her father grumbled angrily. "I'll tell them that we found her, but then we'll be leaving." Her father had already taken the first step out to the door, when a cry made him turn around.

"Mark! Mark!" Anne's mother was screaming, examining her daughter at arm's length. "There is…something wrong with Anne. There is blood…."

"Anne, honey, where are you hurt?" Her father was suddenly beside her, pulling her out of her mother's grasp, into the light of the front porch.

"I'm not hurt´," she told them. "It's from inside. I was looking for you inside."

"Inside?" Her mother asked, not willing to realize the horror that had descended over their long weekend.

Her father started jogging towards the door before she had a chance to finish. "Get in the car," he ordered his wife and daughter. "Lock the doors."

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

The Doctor was trying to distract her and it was working. Rose hadn't seen him disappear off into the maze of TARDIS corridors. Adam had been talking non-stop ever since they had gotten back to the TARDIS after their escape from Van Statten's underground museum.

"I don't believe this is happening," Adam told her for what had to be the fourth or fifth time. "And you can really go anywhere, anytime?"

"Yeah, I suppose so." Something about Adam rankled at her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She was already starting to regret having talked the Doctor into taking him along.

"So, if you can go anywhere, you already know what is going to happen in the future?"

"Not really." Rose had never given the issue much thought. "We usually don't even end up where we want to go." She shrugged.

"You just travel around and that's it?" Adam seemed disappointed.

"Why not?" Rose found herself asking rather sharply. The truth was, she didn't know why the Doctor did what he did. With the rest of his people along with his planet gone, she supposed, there was no place he really belonged. He could go anywhere he wanted, but he never stayed, Rose realized. They were usually back in the TARDIS and on their way before the dust had a chance to settle.

"Think about all the things you could do! You-," Adam tore her from her thoughts.

"I should really find the Doctor," Rose interrupted him. She shrugged apologetically and turned away. She was getting a little worried that the Doctor hadn't come back to the main control room. He was always there performing upgrades or making modifications to the TARDIS when they were not out exploring. In fact, she couldn't recall if the Doctor ever went to bed.

oOo

The TARDIS seemed to have set her heart on letting her find the Doctor. While Rose still couldn't quite wrap her head around seeing the TARDIS as something akin to a sentient being, she couldn't deny that she was being guided through the maze of corridors. She had no idea how long she had been walking when she stepped through an open doorway into a small, dimly lit room. It looked cross between a living room and an antique store. The Doctor was resting on a couch, overstuffed with colourful pillows.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor opened his eyes and found her gaze.

"Rose. Is everything all right?" He was smiling, but Rose could see on his face that he was in pain.

"It's fine. I was worried," she admitted. "Are you all right?"

"Of course." The Doctor didn't look at her.

"Don't lie to me." Rose settled on the edge of the couch, pushing away some of the surplus pillows. The Doctor didn't reply. "What happened with Van Statten?"

"Nothing," the Doctor lied and sat up. He winced in pain.

"Tell me. The truth," Rose demanded.

"Nothing, really. Just your typical curious and ignorant human happened. Why can't you ever simply accept things you don't understand? You always have to prod, poke and pry- OW!" The Doctor yelped and sank back down on the pillows. He was breathing very fast and started gasping for breath. Rose watched helplessly as his face contorted in pain.

"Doctor! Talk to me!" Rose had never felt so helpless in her entire life. The Doctor didn't seem to be aware of her presence anymore. She took his hand in hers, wanting to let him know that he wasn't alone in whatever was happening to him. He reacted to her touch, closing his fingers around her hand.

The Doctor squeezed her hand hard as a new wave of pain went through. Rose wished she had at least some idea what was happening to him. Without the Doctor, she would be stranded forever somewhere in the ether outside space and time. But it wasn't just fear for herself. She hadn't known the Doctor for long and knew hardly anything about him, but she would be devastated to lose him.

When the Doctor's hand went slack inside her own and his body went still, Rose saw her worst fears come to pass. It took agonizing seconds, but she was finally able to find a pulse on the Doctor's wrist. It was very slow and seemed irregular to Rose.

There was nothing she could do, but wait and hope for the Doctor to wake up.

oOo

At first, Rose hadn't noticed that the lights were slowing getting dimmer. She simply sat there, holding the Doctor's hand and waiting.

"There you are!" The voice made Rose whirl around. Adam was standing in the doorway. "There is something wrong with the ship."

"There is something wrong with the Doctor!" Rose wanted to scream at him.

"With some time, we should be able to figure out how to fly the ship ourselves." Adam looked from the Doctor back to Rose.

"Just get out!" The tears Rose had been holding back were threatening to spill. She turned away, not wanting Adam to see her unravelling.

oOo

Rose hadn't even realized that she had fallen asleep when she was suddenly stirred awake by someone squeezing her hand.

"Hey." Rose looked up, still sleeping and found the Doctor looking up at her. He looked horrible – pale with dark bruises under his eyes.

"You are awake!"

"It would seem so." The Doctor cut her a smile. It wasn't quite up to usual wattage, but it was a smile.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"A little adverse reaction to primitive technology, nothing more." The Doctor jumped to his feet, and proceeded to smooth his leader jacket and immediately winced. "So, what have you and museum-boy been up to?"

Rose was about to ask him what had really happened at the museum when the TARDIS rocked hard and lurched to a stop, nearly throwing them both off their feet.

"The one time I'm not around to baby-sit you…," the Doctor grumbled, shaking his headas he set off towards the control room. Rose had more questions, but decided that they could wait. She ran after the Doctor, determined not to let him get off that easy.

oOo

After he'd blamed first Adam and then Rose, the Doctor had to concede that the TARDIS maybe hadn't crashed after all. He couldn't explain their unexpected landing, but eventually he was satisfied that the TARDIS hadn't come to any harm.

"Nothing to see here, except a few ruins. Not the alien planet I imagined. Are you sure we aren't just somewhere in Egypt or so?" Adam asked rather disappointedly after they had strolled out of the TARDIS into a deserted landscape. The barren ground was littered with white rocks of all seizes. Among the huge boulders were barely recognizable remnants of buildings, their rubble blending in with the rest of the desolate landscape. The sky was a dull grey, the sun nowhere in sight.

"Yes, I'm sure. In fact, you're half-way across the universe," the Doctor replied testily and gave Adam a look that clearly said not to question his ability to pilot the TARDIS again.

"I'll have a look at these rocks then." Adam thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and sulked off.

"You just made that up!" Rose turned to the Doctor as soon as Adam was out of earshot. "You said you had no idea where we were when I asked you in the TARDIS."

"All right, go rub it in. The TARDIS is a bit temperamental; she sometimes does what she thinks is best."

"So the TARDIS brought us here?" Rose asked.

"Maybe. Probably. Although I don't know why she'd pick this place."

"You've been here before?"

"No, only to a place that looked a look like this. But that was a long time ago."

"You can keep track of all the planets you've been to in the last 900 years?" Rose couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that the Doctor looked like an ordinary forty-something guy.

"Most of them," the Doctor replied absently, apparently lost in thought. Rose waited for him to continue, but he remained silent. He simply sat down, but winced in pain when he leaned back against a boulder.

"What is it?"

"Nothing." The Doctor didn't look at her.

"Twice in one day." Rose tried for levity, but couldn't quite hide her worry from the Doctor. "What's wrong with your back?"

"Burns."

Rose must have looked shocked, because the Doctor continued hastily. "I'll be fine."

"Don't you have some skin-regenerator-thingy in the TARDIS?"

"They are called nanogenes. But I think we have bigger problems." The Doctor waved at the stony desert around them. "The TARDIS won't take off."

"Are you sure?"

"Don't you start, too. It's bad enough when he does it."

"His name is Adam and I'm getting the feeling that you don't like him."

"I don't," the Doctor replied simply. "But I don't think he's got anything to do with this. The TARDIS hasn't been tampered with and it's too complicated for you lot anyways."

"Thank you," Rose said sarcastically. "Anything your superior mind figured out, then?"

"No. I have a few ideas, but none of them good and none of them likely - ow." The Doctor suddenly gasped in pain. "No, the TARDIS…" He tried to get to his feet. Rose tried to catch him when he fell and they both tumbled to the ground. Rose looked at the Doctor, and then at the TARDIS, just in time to see the TARDIS shimmer out of existence. The Doctor disentangled himself from Rose and jogged over to where the TARDIS had been.

"What were those ideas again?" Rose caught up with the Doctor. Despite the seriousness of their situation, Rose had to smile. The baffled look on the Doctor's face was priceless.

"The Dalek. It fell through a rift in time. It must still have been attached to the rift. When it…died, the rift must have widened and pulled the TARDIS off course. Imagine smashing a mirror. Cracks spread out from the point of impact across the mirror. There are cracks spreading out through time. The TARDIS must have fallen through a small one. We have to close the rift before bigger things can fall into it."

"How do we do that?" Rose asked.

"Trans-dimensional objects like the TARDIS are attracted to temporal disturbances. If we find it, we should find the source of the rift, so we can try to fix it. Problem is, it could be anywhere at any time. There is no telling to where the cracks open."

"If we walk through the same crack the TARDIS fell through, shouldn't we end up in the same place?"

"Exactly. But we have got to hurry before the crack shifts. It could be a bumpy ride though." The Doctor grabbed Rose by the hand.

"What about Adam? We can't just leave him here!" Rose protested. "Adam! Adam!"

"Rose, there isn't time. The crack could be shifting any second now." For a moment, Rose saw the air vibrate like on a very hot summer day.

"Hold on. Don't let go of my hand," the Doctor yelled and pulled her towards the ripple.

oOo

"Oh." Rose opened her eyes with a gasp. It was pitch dark, but she was alive, definitely alive. "Doctor?" She sat up. "Doctor, are you around somewhere? Adam?"

Suddenly, a light flickered on. The Doctor stood a few feet from her, holding an old-fashioned oil lamp. Adam was nowhere to be seen and Rose felt a pang of regret. He'd still be safe in Utah if she hadn't asked him to come along. "Where are we?"

"Cellar," the Doctor replied.

"Obviously." Rose got to her feet and looked around. It looked like a typical cellar – a typical cellar on Earth. Shelves stacked with glasses of jam and pickled cucumbers, rusted gardening tools and an old freezer.

"You have got to be kidding. We are on Earth?"

"Maybe." The Doctor was examining the gardening tools. Rose went to examine the shelves more closely.

The dates on the glasses went through the 1990s up to 2006. Right place, right time.

"Strawberry, elderberry, gooseberry. Someone likes berries." The Doctor looked over her shoulder.

"Maybe they eat a lot of toast," Rose suggested.

"Yeah, lots of that in the freezer," the Doctor shrugged.

"Not that I don't find all this fascinating, but how do we find the TARDIS?" Rose asked.

"We must be pretty close."

"How close?" Rose was skeptical. The Doctor had this way of walking into trouble.

"Same geographical region, give or take a few hundred miles. Time-wise, we shouldn't be off by more than a few weeks at the most. Shouldn't be too hard." The Doctor made his way to the stairs. "Anyways, she's not in this cellar."

Rose followed the Doctor up the concrete steps. The flickering glow of the oil lamp cast moving shadows and she couldn't help but feel slightly uneasy. The Doctor, on the other hand, didn't seem bothered. He pushed open the metal door. Immediately, Rose knew she had been right – something was very wrong.

They were greeted by the coppery, sweet smell of blood—lots of blood.

The Doctor was already halfway across the hallway when Rose found her voice again.

"Do you think that is a good idea?"

"I think we brought something with us," the Doctor called to her from an open doorway at the end of a corridor. Rose joined him, trying not to show her fear.

She looked past the Doctor. What looked like the dining hall of a small inn or a bed and breakfast had been turned into an abattoir. The sickening smell was much stronger here and she could see why. Blood was everywhere. Congealing blood pooled on the floorboards, blood was dripping from tablecloths. Rose felt sick. She swallowed convulsively, trying to get her voice to work.

"What the hell happened here?" she finally squawked.

"Something not human." The Doctor went over to examine something behind one of the tables. Rose wasn't sure she wanted to see what it was when she already felt like she was going to throw up any second. She swallowed again, but it didn't help.

"Doctor, I have to get out of here," she managed before she bolted down the corridor, running for what she hoped was the front door, and not caring what was outside.

Outside was only night and fresh air. Rose greedily sucked in the cool, clean night air.

"Are you all right?" Rose whirled around and found the Doctor standing in the front door.

"Yeah, I think so. But I'm not going back in there," she said, shaking her head for emphasis.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to see this." The Doctor joined her on the front steps.

"It's all right," Rose lied. "You couldn't have known where the time crack would take us. What happened in there?"

"Something with very sharp claws killed those people. Nothing native could have done that."

"Any idea yet where we are?" Rose asked.

"Definitely Earth." The Doctor pointed to the sky. "Northern hemisphere, latitude and longitude correspond to the United Kingdom."

Rose contemplated the sky for a moment, wondering what the Doctor saw when he looked up at the stars.

"Doctor, do you hear that?"

"Yes, police sirens."

"I don't think they should find us in front of a house with dead people inside." The sirens grew louder and Rose could now hear a car approaching.

"Too late." A police car pulled up with screeching tyres. Rose and the Doctor were literally caught in the headlights.

"Don't move! Keep your hands were I can see them," a loud voice from behind the blinding headlight commanded.

"Don't shoot. We didn't do anything," Rose yelled, really not wanting to be shot at again that day.

"What are you doing here?" the voice asked.

"Uh, we heard a noise from inside and…" Rose tried, wishing the Doctor would say something. He normally did all the smooth talk.

"We have identification!" Rose called out desperately.

"Toss it over. Nice and slowly."

Rose nudged the Doctor. The Doctor carefully lowered one arm, pulled out his psychic ID card and tossed it in the direction of the police officer.

They finally dimmed the headlights.

"DCI John Smith?"

"Yes, that's me," the Doctor replied. "Would you mind not pointing guns at us?"

The two uniformed officers lowered their weapon. The Doctor walked over to them and Rose hesitantly joined him.

"What happened here?" the Doctor asked.

"Not sure, sir. We got an emergency call from someone at this address. The call was cut off, but it sounded like they were being attacked."

"They were attacked all right. The question is by what?"

"Sir, are you all right?" One of the officers motioned to the blood smeared all over the Doctor's shirt and jacket.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor didn't seem to have noticed.

The officers whispered something, and then one of them turned to Rose. "And you would be?"

"Uh, DI Tyler," Rose replied, wishing she'd paid more attention to this sort of thing on TV.

"I don't suppose you got papers to back that up."

"I must have forgotten them in the car," Rose lied and realized she'd just made a mistake. They had no car and she didn't think the time crack story would fly very well

"With everything else that's gone on lately, I think you better come with us. Hands on the car!"

Rose and the Doctor complied and found themselves in handcuffs, in the back of the police car a few seconds later.

oOo

Gwen was tired. They had spent the day rummaging through police records, non-computerized of course, and nothing had come off it. Even though exactly this had been her day job until a month ago, it had been a boring day by Torchwood standards.

"Two people murdered, no-one knows how. A neighbour who saw the bodies and now they are gone and you don't think there is anything suspicious going on? Aren't you supposed to be the paranoid one here?" Owen asked from the back seat.

"You're doing a fine job. And I'm letting you check out the grave of the other murder victim. Believe me, if I thought this was just a regular serial killer, I would be in a bar right now and not in a car with you two in the middle of nowhere," Jack replied without turning back, keeping his attention on the road.

"Can we just dig up a body? In a cemetery? Don't we need a judge to sign off on an exhumation? I mean we can't…" Gwen asked, not able to fully shake her police training.

"We can and we will, although I'm already starting to regret it. Weather isn't getting any better either," Jack sighed.

"That's exactly what I mean – freaky weather patterns, mysterious deaths – that's why we are here," Owen said with excitement.

"Only if it is alien and I'm pretty sure this isn't. Aliens don't go around knifing people. It's a cultural thing," Jack said as if that settled the matter for good.

Gwen yawned. Icy rain was pounding against the car's window. The rhythmic swishing of the wipers and the heat in the SUV were making her tired. She should be calling Rhys, she thought idly. Not that he asked anymore, but it was getting late and they were nowhere near Cardiff. Gwen was drifting off, when the car suddenly began to spin, causing her head to hit the side window.

"Jack!" Gwen called out, panicking as the car spun out of control.

Suddenly, the SUV came to a stop, after a one-eighty turn.

"Everyone all right?" Jack turned to Gwen and Owen in the back. Suddenly bright light filled the car. Headlights of an oncoming car.

"Shit. Jack, look out!" Gwen called out as the headlights moved closer. Jack spun around, tyres screeched and then metal hit metal.

oOo

"Ow." Somewhere a car horn was blaring, making her head hurt. Gwen jerked fully awake, remembering what had happened. They had been hit by a car and—

"Jack? Owen?" Gwen struggled to free herself from the tangled seatbelt. Owen was next to her, head slumped against the side window.

"Shit." Gwen tried to reach over to him when she realized that her wrist wasn't working. It was clearly broken. Gwen carefully pulled her injured hand into the pocket of her jacket to avoid further jarring it. "Jack!" All she could see was a figure slumped in the front seat.

"Yes." Jack's head jerked up and it took a second until he realized what had happened.

"Shit." Jack echoed Gwen's sentiment and turned off the horn. "We're busted. How's Owen?"

"Still out. Looks like he hit his head. Can't be sure though, he's the doctor. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, nothing major. You?"

"I think my wrist's broken, but that's all. It's freezing in here." Gwen wrapped her good arm around herself.

"Sure? You got blood all over you, Gwen."

For the first time, Gwen looked down on herself. Jack was right. There was blood everywhere - splattered over her jacket, bloody handprints on her jeans as if someone had tried to clean off bloody hands.

"I don't know…I don't think its mine." Gwen stammered, confused.

"Good, good." Maybe it was her imagination, but Jack sounded unusually shaken.

"Where are we?" Gwen changed the subject.

"Somewhere off the road." Jack turned back to the dashboard. "SatNav's not working and my cell's smashed. God, I hate the 21st century," he groaned.

Gwen fished her phone out of her jacket, her gaze falling back on all the blood. The phone was still intact, but she got no reception. "No luck here either. Maybe we should try to get back to the road."


	3. Chapter 2

oOo

"I can't even see the road. Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Owen yelled over the rain fifteen minutes later. He sounded just a little bit drunk and quite nasal, but insisted that he was fine and that his nose wasn't broken. He and Gwen were struggling uphill on soggy ground.

"Of course, we are going in the right direction. The road should be right up there," Gwen said, more to convince herself than Owen. Jack had disappeared somewhere in the heavy rain. Gwen's broken wrist hurt like hell, her feet were wet and freezing and the flashlight she'd found in the boot of the car was almost useless under the weather conditions.

"Gwen! Owen!" Jack's voice came from somewhere above them, muted by the sound of rushing water.

"Jack! Did you find the road?" Gwen yelled back as loud as she could, hoping to make herself heard. The rain seemed to get worse by the minute, turning into a veritable torrent.

"Yes, but that is not the only thing I found. Hurry up," Jack called impatiently.

After endless minutes of braving mud, rocks and heavy rain, Gwen and Owen finally stumbled onto the wonderfully solid tarmac of the country road.

Jack was leaning against a dirty blue station wagon that stood turned sideways in the middle of the road. The front end was badly dented, the paint scratched.

At first Gwen thought it was the car that had knocked the SUV off the road but when she come closer, she saw that the windows were covered with blood, from the inside.

"Oh, my God." Gwen had seen quite a few traffic accidents on the beat, but there had never been so much blood. It looked like the occupants had bled out. "What happened'?" she asked, almost scared to know.

"Dead?" Owen asked, leaning in to try seeing in through one of the windows.

"Yes, both of them." Jack carefully pulled open the driver-side door with a handkerchief.

"Do you think that's a good idea…" Owen started, but a sharp look from Jack cut him off. "They were attacked – by something."

Gwen swallowed and stepped in closer. The mangled, bloodied bodies of two people, Gwen could only assume it had been a man and women, were strewn inside the car. The woman was sprawled over the driver's seat, covered in dark blood. Her head was almost completely severed from her torso. The man was in the passenger seat, head tilted back. His throat too was slashed, but that wasn't all. His shirt, the original colour disguised entirely by blood, was sliced to shreds.

"Owen?" Jack asked, clearly demanding a professional assessment of the situation.

"At first glance, I'd say, it looks like their throats were slit. With all the blood, it's difficult to tell in what order the injuries were inflicted. I need to get them back to the hub. But based on the amount of blood from the stab wounds to their chests, they were already bleeding out by the time their throats were slit.

"I would never have guessed, with her head almost cut off," Jack commented sharply.

Gwen thought he was being a little harsh with Owen, but she couldn't really blame him. The car crash and the soaking rain had made Jack even crankier than he'd been all day. "Is there anything to indicate that the killer wasn't human?"

Owen shrugged. "Not as far as I can tell. The stab wounds can probably be attributed to a knife of sorts. I'm not saying there is particularly alien about these murders, but there have been an awful lot of deaths around here in the last few days. Not that I would rule out boredom as the motive, but a spree killer out here…"

"Is not unheard of either," Jack finished for him.

Not in the mood for the bantering between Jack and Owen, Gwen had a closer look inside the car. The front of the car was covered in the blood. The windows, the dashboard, even the ceiling. The back was much cleaner. Save for a blood-soaked blanket in the back seat, the interior was spotless. But then, she had already turned away again when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Instinctively, she wanted to reach for her gun but she couldn't, not with a broken wrist,

"Owen! Jack! In the backseat!" she called to get their attention.

Jack had his gun trained on whatever was moving there before Gwen had finished speaking. Owen followed suit a second later.

Something moved under the blanket, making a whining noise.

Signaling for Gwen and Owen to wait, Jack lunged forwards and pulled back the stained blanket. Beneath it was a girl, who couldn't be older than six or seven. Her clothes – jeans and shirt with yellow and pink flowers--were soaked with blood. She was staring at them with huge green eyes.

"Owen, take a look at her, but be careful," Jack ordered. Owen flinched, but got to work, talking softly to the little girl as he checked her over.

"We need to call an ambulance," Gwen said. "I'll try the phone again." Struggeling with one hand, Gwen managed to pull the phone from the pocket of her jacket.

"No reception," she said and shrugged. "We'll have to try our luck on foot. We passed the local police post maybe five miles ago. I remember there was a clinic in the back of the building."

"Owen," Jack asked. "Is she…?"

"Yes, Jack. She is human. She is a scared little girl, covered in the blood of her parents. But yes, she is human. I'm not sure I can say the same thing about you, though," Owen yelled at his boss. The girl started screaming, pressing her hands over her ears, as if too block out the screaming men. Gwen leaned down to eye-level.

"Hey," she tried softly. "I'm Gwen. I'm a police officer," she lied. "Want to tell me your name?"

"Anne," the girl whispered, but didn't take her hands from her ears.

"Anne, are you hurt anywhere?" Gwen asked, mentally checking over the girl. There was a lot of blood on her clothes, but she couldn't see any bleeding.

Anne slowly removed her hands from her ears and inched closer to Gwen.

"I hit my head," Anne told her. "When I was hiding." Tears started welling up in Anne's eyes, so Gwen knew not to press the issue further. There was no telling what the young girl had seen. If she'd been lucky, she'd hidden under the blanket until it had all been over. But she still would have heard her parents scream as they were murdered.

"It's all right," Gwen told her softly. "Can you get out of the car for me?"

Anne nodded and clung to a small green backpack that was lying on the seat next to her. "But I'm going to get wet. I'm not allowed to go out in the rain."

"I'm sure we can make an exception here," Gwen said and extended her hand towards Anne's. Anne hesitantly took it and allowed herself to be pulled outside, one hand wound around Gwen's good wrist, the other around the handle of her backpack. It took all of Gwen's willpower not to scream as she balanced the small child on her hip, holding her tightly to her body, shielding her as well from the rain as she could.

oOo

Six months ago, Rose would never have thought she'd be arrested one day. Since she had started travelling with the Doctor, the possibility hadn't seemed quite so remote anymore as the Doctor had a gift for getting into trouble. But since he was even better at getting them out of whatever jam they had gotten into, usually at the last minute, she hadn't really lost any sleep about it. Now that she was literally behind bars, in the holding cell of a small nameless police station, she wasn't quite so confident in the Doctor anymore. The psychic paper had already failed to impress the police officers, although Rose had to admit that the two of them didn't exactly look like they were police, at least not anything like the detectives on TV. The Doctor's flippant attitude wasn't helping matters.

While the officers had paid little attention to Rose, save arresting her, putting her into handcuffs, of course, and locking her up in a holding cell, they seemed determined to get a confession out of the Doctor. The Doctor was sticking to his story, which while not exactly true, was close enough. But every time he repeated it, the police officer grew more and more furious.

"John Smith?! Are you trying to be funny?" The police officer, whose name Rose still hadn't heard, slammed the psychic paper down on his desk with a force that made Rose flinch. If the Doctor had a plan how to get them out of here before they were charged with murder and who knew what other horrible crimes the police seemed to think they were good for, Rose hoped for both their sakes it was going to work.

"I'm telling you, that's my name. My parents weren't too imaginative," the Doctor said and shrugged, the movement somewhat hampered by the fact that he was handcuffed to the table. "Would you please undo the cuffs? I'm telling you, we have nothing to do with whatever you think we did."

"You don't seem to understand in just how much trouble you are in. We are talking about murder. Five counts of murder. Why? Wasn't it enough to kill the owners and the staff, but you had to kill that little girl, too. What was it, did she see you and you had to shut her up? Hadley was a sweet little girl; she didn't deserve to be buried in a ditch."

"No, she certainly didn't. Nobody does," the Doctor agreed solemnly. He had tried not to show it before, but Rose could tell that the events of the past twenty-four hours had gotten to him. Not just physically – Rose had gotten a glimpse of the burns on the Doctor's back when they had taken away his shirt and jacket as evidence as they both had blood on it, but for the first time since she had met the Doctor, he sounded tired. "But you never learn, do you? At least let her go. She has nothing to do with all this – not that I have – but I understand how this must look."

"So, you admit you were inside the hostel?"

"Yes, as I said before, I was looking for a place to spend the night. That's when I found the bodies. They were already dead when we got there," the Doctor repeated their story once again. Rose couldn't really blame the officer. From his point of view, they made pretty good suspects. Trying to pass for police officers probably hadn't helped. It was starting to look more and more like they were going to spend the night at the police station, if they were lucky, instead of going looking for the TARDIS.

"Miss?" Rose looked up, her attention no longer on the Doctor, but on the female officer who had appeared in front of her cell. She was holding a steaming mug, offering it to Rose through the bars.

"I thought you might like something to drink. It was quite cold out there and you don't even have a jacket."

"Thank you," Rose said and accepted the mug, drinking in the sweet smell of hot chocolate. "I appreciate it." The warmth of the ceramic container pleasantly leached into her cold fingers.

"Listen, I know this must be difficult for you and you're probably pretty frightened right now, but it is going to be all right. Are you sure you don't want us to call your parents? I'm sure they are worried about you," the woman said in a soft tone, almost as if talking to a frightened child.

"No, I'm sure. I'm fine, really," Rose affirmed, feeling anything but fine right now. To be honest, the thought of home, of Jackie and Mickey – home where nothing exciting ever happened, where no monsters, no robots, no aliens, no one was chasing after her, trying to exterminate or eat her--was suddenly very appealing.

"If there is something wrong, you can tell me. Whatever he did, you can't blame yourself for that. You have to know that."

"What?!" Rose took a moment to understand what the officer meant. "No, no, no. It's not like that. I mean, of course I didn't do anything, but the...he….he didn't kidnap me or force me or anything like that."

"At least take this." The woman handed her a white business card with a phone number printed on it. "It's the number of a friend, a social worker. He runs a center in the city. You can call any time, day or night and somebody will come to pick you up."

"I don't need…" Rose started.

"At least think about it." She gave Rose a long look of regret. "You'll most likely have to spend the night here, at least until we have the chance to compare your fingerprints to our database. If you aren't in the system you'll probably be released."

"Why don't you do that right now?" Rose asked, eager to get out and go back to finding the TARDIS.

"The phone lines are down. Happens every time we get a storm out here and this one is looking like it's going to be a big one. You'll be better off in here than trying to hitch a way to Cardiff in this weather. You could freeze to death out there tonight."

Rose realized that the police officers obviously thought she and the Doctor were homeless.

oOo

The feeling of relief at finally having escaped the biting cold and streaming rain turned into dread in the fraction of a second it took Jack's mind to recognize the man currently cuffed to one of the desk in the small squad room of the country police station. He was the last person Jack had expected to see. He'd spent months looking for the Doctor, carefully watching out for signs he was back. But not even the hand had given him any indication of the impending encounter.

He hadn't even been sure this recent string of murders was a case for Torchwood, but now that the Doctor was involved, he was certain of it.

Jack was thinking of something to say, when Jordan, if Jack recalled the name right, turned towards him, an expression of disdain forming on his face. "You're back."

"It would seem so. As it turns out, this is a case for Torchwood after all." This wasn't really how Jack had planned for things to go. Just as suddenly as he had stepped into the squad room, he had come closer to finally finding some answers than he had been since he'd woken up alone on the space station.

"Funny you should say this. We managed to apprehend those two all on our own. Caught them red handed. Literally." Jordan smirked. "We might even have caught them before they killed five more people if you hadn't made us jump through hoops all day."

Jack decided to ignore the man for now. Damage control was in order and fast. "Torchwood is officially taking over the case. We'll need to see all evidence and bodies you have turned over to us. We'll deal with your suspects." Jack wondered if it was really wise to get Torchwood involved when aliens, like the Doctor, were what they were trained to hunt.

"I don't suppose I can stop you," Jordan shrugged. "But I'm telling you, they are the ones who killed all those people. It's only a matter of time until we get them to admit to it."

"Thank you, but we'll be dealing with them from now on."

"It's just as well. You'll have fun with those two." Jordan waved at the Doctor and following his gesture, Jack spotted Rose leaning in the corner of a holding cell adjacent to the main room. While he hadn't been so sure with the Doctor, the blank and slightly surprised look on Rose's face told him all he hadn't wanted to know. She had no idea who he was.

Jack suppressed a sigh. His day was getting better by the minute. Of all the times and space in the universe, he had to run into the Doctor at a point in the Doctor's timeline before they had met. Forcing himself not to think about all the implications of their meeting at this point in time, he turned to the rest of his team who by now had followed him into the squad room. The female officer had already rushed towards them when she saw Owen and Gwen carrying in the girl they had found in the car.

"Dr. Strutz has an office out back. He's got some medical supplies there. He's the only doctor in the area. He's working on the hostel murders right now, but you can wait in his office. Should I call ahead and tell him that you were coming?" Travis offered.

"That won't be necessary. I'm a doctor myself."

"Oh, that's good." The woman seemed surprised, but caught herself quickly. "If you'll just follow me, I'll show you the way." She shot the trio a wavering smile, obviously feeling uncomfortable with the development of the situation.

"Officer Travis," Jack called after the woman. She stopped and turned around.

"Please take this young woman with you. Tell Dr. Harper to check her out." Jack indicated the cell where Rose was locked up. Travis' face brightened as she unlocked the holding cell.

"Thank you." Rose sounded surprised but no less relieved. She shot a smile at Jack before following Officer Travis.

One of the officers and Rose taken care of, Jack turned to Jordan.

"We'll also need all the files pertaining to any murder in your jurisdiction during…say the last fifty years. Or however long your records go back." Jack forced a smile.

Honestly, he didn't think that whatever was running lose in the area, killing people and making bodies vanish, had been around for more than a few days at best. But he needed to get Jordan out of the way if he wanted to talk to the Doctor in private. The sooner he got the Doctor out of here the better. He could worry later about explaining it to his team, not that he had any idea how to do that. His team were used to hunting down alien life. He hadn't been able to be upfront about his own person. Gwen might know that he couldn't die and he was sure the others suspected something after the incident with Lisa, but they were far from knowing the truth. The truth that included how desperate for answers he really was and how he sometimes wished he could just get out of the twenty-first century and never come back, no matter how important his work at Torchwood was.

As soon as Jordan was out of earshot, Jack walked over to the Doctor, stepping in close.

"Do you know what's behind these killings?" Jack asked the Doctor, forcing eye contact.

The Doctor regarded him for a moment before replying. "I don't."

"Good. Or not. I know you and Rose have nothing to do with any of this, but I don't think it's a coincidence that you showed up just in time. How'd you get here – was there something drawing the TARDIS to Earth or were there any unusual signals coming from the area?"

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, narrowing his eyes at Jack.

"Someone who knows you didn't murder any of those people. But what is important is that you listen to me. Rose is going to come back any minute now. When she does, you and Rose need to go back to the TARDIS and leave before the storm passes. At the moment, the phone lines are down and the road almost impassible."

The Doctor looked at him blankly.

"You don't want Torchwood getting a hand of you and Rose." Jack winced when he saw the look on the Doctor's face, which clearly said that he thought Jack was either a complete lunatic or in cahoots with some unspeakable evil--or possibly both.

"Here," he tossed over a t-shirt that hung from a clothes rack across the room. The Doctor accepted the shirt, briefly sniffed it before putting it on with obvious discomfort. Jack could only imagine how painful the fabric had to be against untreated second-degree burns.

"Who are you and what do you have to do with Torchwood?" the Doctor demanded again, his voice low with a kind of dangerous quality he hadn't thought that he was capable of.

"I can't tell you, I really can't. And if you knew why, you would understand. All I can tell you is that I'm on your side and I'm probably the only one in here who is." Jack reached in his pocket, looking for a lock-pick to undo the Doctor's handcuffs.

He was interrupted by a series of screams coming from somewhere in the back of the building. Jack took off running, the Doctor momentarily forgotten.


	4. Chapter 3

oOo

Owen knew why he had gone into forensic medicine – he simply was no good with the living. Much less so if they were injured and bleeding. During the seemingly endless nights he'd spent working A&E, he had come to dread the times when a child ended up in his care. The only thing worse than having children as patients was having to deal with their parents. Luckily, it seemed like he was going to dodge that bullet. However, when it occurred to him that he might have to tell a six-year-old that her parents had been murdered, that didn't seem to be that much of a blessing anymore. Fortunately, the girl had taken to Gwen, clinging on to her as if her life depended on it.

As for her physical condition, Owen was fairly sure that her injuries were only superficial. Her clothes were soaked and smeared with mud and lots of blood, but aside from a gash on her forehead, Owen couldn't see any obvious injuries. Nothing like a gaping gut wound or anything like that. She did seem pretty traumatized, which, in Owen's unprofessional opinion didn't seem too surprising.

"Okay, Anne. I told you about my friend Owen. Remember?" Gwen said to Anne and tried to sit her down on the desk in the coroner's office. Anne emitted a wail and clung tighter to Gwen. "It's okay. I promise it's okay. I'll be right there with you. I'll be holding your hand the entire time, I promise." This time, Anne let Gwen manoeuvre her over to the desk. She clung to Gwen's good hand and her enormous green eyes didn't leave the former police officer, but Gwen didn't seem to mind.

Owen supposed she had probably dealt with her share of traumatized youngsters during her time on the beat, or being female, possessed some mysterious connection to children that was lost to Owen. Gwen had talked to her in soft tones the entire long way to the police station, but Anne had told them nothing else about what had happened, and Gwen hadn't pushed her.

Owen checked the girl over, coming to pretty much the same conclusion as earlier – psychological damage aside, she was essentially fine. Still, there was something odd about her. Something that sent shivers down Owen's back that had nothing to do with walking five miles in streaming rain.

Maybe it was his work with Torchwood that made him more suspicious, aware to the possibilities that something non-human could lurk behind the most innocent façade. He would never admit it, but he began to suspect that there was a possibility that Jack had been right back on the road. This girl was creeping him out. The way she followed every one of his movements with her huge green eyes, eyes that seemed hollow and dead. It was laughable, but she reminded him of a cat, studying her prey and waiting for the moment to pounce.

There was a knock on the door. The door opened a second later and the young woman from the holding cell walked in.

"Uh, hi. Your boss sent me here. He thinks I should have my arm looked at." The young woman indicated her right arm, which was smeared with dried blood and sported a three-inch-long gash. It had probably been pretty painful, but it was clearly a few hours old already and had long since stopped bleeding. There was still some risk from infection, but Owen had no idea since when Jack was this perceptive, let alone caring when it came to potentially other worldly knife-wielding killers.

"I'm Rose, by the way," she introduced herself with a smile. Under different circumstances, Owen would have taken an active interest in Rose, even if she was a bit young for him. But the girl was an effective distraction; her gaze was keeping Owen on alert, making him feel like his every move was being watched.

"I'll have a look at it," Owen told Rose dismissively, still distracted by the strange child.

"It's not really all that bad," Rose agreed amicably and leaned against a shelf on the other side of the room. Owen had already turned back to Anne, when he caught a glimpse of something glowing green out of the corner of his eyes. Alarmed, he turned back.

"Can I see that cut again?" he asked more sharply than he had intended, but Rose only shrugged.

"Sure." She rolled up her sleeve. It was reddened by beginning infection, but there was a faint green trace around the wound. "It doesn't really hurt anymore."

"Rose? Where did you get that injury?" Owen asked.

Rose seemed surprised by the question. "I tripped on the stairs," she replied after a pause and regarded Owen with a look of suspicion.

"At the hostel where the murders happened?" Owen asked, feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

"Yes. But we had nothing to do with them. They were already dead when we found them," Rose told him angrily. "We didn't do anything, you have to believe me." She looked him in the eyes and the same empty green eyes looked back at him.

"Yes," Owen replied, his thoughts racing. If they were dealing with a contagion – the question was how it spread. At the worst, it was something airborne and they'd probably all have been infected by now. If they were lucky, it spread by blood contact, and then they still had a chance of containing the outbreak.

"Gwen," Owen said, his tones measured. Gwen looked at him, an expression of surprise on her face. To Owen's great relief, her eyes still had their natural colour. "Owen, what is it?"

"We could use some clothes for Anne. Maybe you could go and ask Jack." Gwen had to realize that something was off. Hopefully, she would tell Jack and figure it all out, before he got stabbed to pieces. Even in Owen's mind the whole thing appeared to be a bit of a stretch.

"Why would…." Gwen started, but then plastered a smile on her face, obviously realizing that Owen was trying to tell her something.

"Anne," She said as she kneeled down to Anne's eyelevel. "I'm going to find you some fresh clothes. Owen and Rose are going to stay right there with you. Is that okay?"

"I think so." Anne let go of Gwen's hand, immediately wrapping both her arms around her green backpack like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning. If Owen hadn't suspected her to be responsible for at least five murders, he would almost have felt sorry for her. Gwen left.

"Rose." Owen turned to the young woman, forcing himself not to flinch at the vacant look in her eyes. "Would it be possible for me to take a blood sample from you?"

"Why?" she asked, but there was no trace of hostility in her voice.

"Making sure there is nothing more to these murders than meets the eye," Owen told her.

"You aren't with the police, are you?" she asked, keeping her arms wrapped tight around herself-

"No, I'm with Torchwood. We investigate alien activity on Earth."

The expression of utter shock on Rose's face was not what Owen had expected.

"I need to go," she finally managed, lunging for the door. She never got to the door.

She fell down to her knees, clutching her left side. Blood was streaming down over her hand, onto her clothes and onto the floor. A knife was buried deep just under her ribcage. Standing in front of Rose stood Anne, the empty backpack smeared with blood on the inside next to her on the floor.

Owen jumped to assist her, but Anne had already pulled out the knife and started stabbing her repeatedly with inhuman speed and strength. Rose had long crumbled to the floor on her side, but Anne kept hacking at her in frenzy. Owen was trying to drag Rose away from the attack, not daring to get between Rose in the knife for fear for being stabbed and potentially infected.

The moment Owen had pulled Rose clear, Gwen, who must have come back in attracted by the noise, came down hard on top of Anne, burying the girl under her. Anne clearly possessed super-human strength, but her size and weight were major disadvantages. She went down, pinned down under Gwen's much higher weight.

Panting, Gwen looked up at Owen.

"What the hell happened, Owen?" she asked, wiping specks of blood from her face, and Anne seemingly unconscious on the floor.

Owen turned Rose on her back. He felt for a pulse on her neck, but he already knew it was too late. Side and stomach were almost hacked to pieces, a bloody mess held together by scraps of clothing. No one could survive such injuries. First shock, then blood loss. Rose would have died within seconds. Her body probably wouldn't even have had time to register pain.

His eyes met Gwen's as they were both trying the process the impossible.

A dark, heavy silence had settled over the office in the aftermaths of horrible bloodshed. Then Owen could hear rushed footfalls coming down the corridor outside, no doubt attracted by the screams. The door crashed open a moment later and, turning his head, Owen saw Jack standing in the doorway, brandishing a futuristic weapon. Owen idly wondered where that had come from.

"Everyone all…" Jack fell silent. He swooped down next to Owen, falling on his knees next to Rose's body.

"Rose. Oh, no. This wasn't supposed to happen." Jack stared at her in silence, finally pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "You weren't supposed to die. I was. This is all wrong."

"I'm sorry, Jack." The voice wasn't human, not any more than the creatures speaking the words. Rose sat up straight, heedless of the bloody mess that was her abdomen. Her appearance was changing rapidly – skin was greying, taking on a silvery shine. Her eyes, already an unnatural shade of green, turned almost black.

"Who are you?" Jack jumped to his feet, holding whomever – whatever she was at gunpoint. She wasn't deterred. She effortlessly rose to her feet, a smile forming on her face. "I'd love to tell you, but that would ruin the surprise."

The next moment, Rose lunged at Jack, knife in hand. They both went down in a heap, struggling for control of the knife. Under ordinary circumstances, Jack would easily have been able to wrestle it from her hand, but again this creature, he didn't stand a chance. She ripped the weapon from his hand and with one clean slice, slit his throat.

A spray of blood hit Owen in the face. He rushed to where Jack was lying, but it was already too late. In less than five seconds, Jack had bled out and his eyes had settled on whatever it was that only the dead could see. The door slammed. Owen looked up and realized he was alone in the office turned abattoir. Gwen! They had to have taken her. Owen reached for his gun and got up. He shot one last look at Jack's dead body, before heading for the door. He managed to take two steps when a gasping breath behind him made the hairs on the back of his head stand up. Jack was coming back to life, just as Rose had. Owen whirled around, pointing his gun at Jack's fallen figure.

Before Owen's unbelieving eyes, Jack pushed himself up on his elbows, rubbed his throat and coughed, before he noticed Owen.

"Put that thing away. Where'd they take her?"

"Uh…" Owen fumbled, his mind having gone totally blank, as if overloaded by the sheer number of impossible things he'd seen in the past few minutes.

Jack didn't wait for a reply. Grabbing his blaster from the floor, he got to his feet and pushed his way past Owen out the door.

oOo

Dying was always bound to ruin Jack's day. It usually hurt like hell and the recovery left him exhausted and in sore need of a drink. Still, he'd been lucky this time. Unlike the time when he'd accidentally fallen off a four-story building or the time he'd been shot in the head, this time hadn't even hurt that much. The whole thing had been over before he'd realized that he was once again going to die.

Jack walked down the long hallway linking the clinic and morgue in the back with the police post in the front of the old building. He could hear loud voices through the closed door of the squad room, but the wood was too thick to let sound through.

Jack pressed his ear against the wooden door, finally able to make out some of the words being spoken inside.

"Please….please," a woman, Travis probably was begging in between sobs.

There was a slab, followed by a cry. Gwen?

"You didn't have to do this! Leave her alone!" That had to be Jordan. Rather Travis, than Gwen, Jack speculated.

"I don't know who you are. I'm going to take a guess and say that you are here for me." The Doctor's calm voice became audible. "Rose, can I call you Rose?"

Jack carefully leaned down on the door handle and pushed it down and opened the door a fraction of an inch. Not really enough to see what was going on, but now he could hear every word being spoken in the squad room.

"I guess that is a fitting name," the creature in Rose's body replied. "I am her, after all."

"You know that is not true," the Doctor said. "If I promise to do what you want, will you let the woman go?"

"I will let her go…if everyone complies with my instructions to the letter. And that includes Captain Harness." Dragging Gwen with her, Rose turned towards the door, which still stood ajar. "You may come in."

Jack opened the door, plastering his best grin on his face, before he fired his blaster at Rose and Gwen.

Gwen crumpled in Rose's grip, but the creature hardly flinched.

"That was not a nice thing to do," the creature chided softly.

Jordan and Travis were in a corner by the window, Jordan comforting the younger woman who was bleeding heavily from a wound on her forehead. But she was still sitting up and conscious and appeared in no immediate danger from her injuries.

Rose was in the middle of the room. She was holding Gwen pressed against her body, the knife Anne had stabbed her with earlier held far too close to Gwen's throat for Jack's liking. Gwen stared at him, her eyes wide with shock.

"What are your demands?" the Doctor asked before Jack got the chance to say anything.

"Give Anne your weapons…all of them," Rose instructed.

Anne did as told and collected the weapons from the two police officers before approaching Jack. Jack handed her the blaster, at the same time as he drew his antique gun. He pulled the trigger, shooting the girl straight into the head. Anne stared at him with bottomless eyes before she collapsed to the floor, dark liquid leaking from the bullet hole in her forehead. Whatever she had been once, she wasn't human anymore.

"I would drop that weapon if I were you," the creature holding Gwen hostage said. She pulled Gwen's lifeless body tighter, tracing the bloody knife across her throat, leaving a line of blood behind. "Just as easy," the creature hissed.

Jack dropped his firearm. There was no one left to pick it up, so it remained on the floor. Rose didn't seem to care.

"Travis, bring me the keys to the squad car. Give the captain the key to the holding cell. Then, you and Jordan will go inside and the good captain will lock you in and throw the key out of the window."

Travis got up. She was shaky on her feet, blood covering the left half of her face. With trepidation, she approached the creature. Her hand was trembling so much that she dropped the key on the floor. A furious scowl formed on the creature's face.

"Pick it up," she ordered at the same moment Jack dove for his fallen gun. He had the shot for a second when the creature was turned, her attention on the sobbing Travis. Jack pulled the trigger, but he was too late and the bullet only tore through the creature's upper arm. Like when he had shot Anne, dark liquid started dripping from the wound. The creature smiled evilly and brought the knife up to Gwen's throat. Slowly, as Jack was forced to watch, she increased the pressure until blood welled up around the blade.

"Stop! Stop it!" the Doctor screamed, his voice pleading. "Tell me what you want from me!"

Rose pulled away the knife. "You know what to do." She eyed Travis and Jordan. The police officers hurried into their own holding cell. Travis was crying openly and there were traces of tears on Jordan's face."

"Go ahead, captain. Lock them in. You should know better than to try anything this time." Jack did as he was told. He walked over to the cell and accepted the keys from Travis. Holding her hand cupped so that the creature couldn't see, she slipped not just one, but two keys in Jack's hand. Jack used the large one to lock the holding cell, concealing the smaller one in his hand. He walked over to the window and tossed out the larger key into the night. He had his back turned to the creature for only a second, but when he turned after closing the window, they were gone. His gaze flew over to the Doctor, who was frantically trying to wriggle his wrists out of the handcuffs, savaging his wrists in the process.

Outside, a car took off.

"You are just going to let them get away?" the Doctor accused Jack. "Where are the keys to these things?"

In that moment Jack realized what the small key Travis had given him was. He tossed it to the Doctor. Without looking back, but certain that the Doctor would follow him, Jack ran outside.


	5. Chapter 4

The moment Jack pushed through the front door of the police station, he was assailed by a gust of wet snowflakes propelled by what was shaping up to be a violent storm. Jack spared a second's glance at the sky, if only to gauge his chances in a foot chase. It was then that he spotted Gwen, lying motionlessly in the accumulating snow. Rushing over to her, Jack checked for a pulse and, to his relief, he found one. Gwen's skin was cold to the touch, much colder than he would have liked, but her pulse was strong and she even started to stir under his touch.

"Gwen, Gwen, can you hear me?"

Gwen groaned, but still didn't open her eyes.

"Damn." Jack looked down the road where fresh tire tracks in the snow led back to the village, looked at the coroner's van still parked in front of the station and then back at Gwen.

"Gwen, get up. Get up. You need to get up. You're going to freeze if you stay out here."

"Jack." Gwen blinked at him. "It's cold."

"I know. Now, get up." Jack pulled Gwen to her feet, but she could hardly stand without his support.

"Where did they go?" Jack turned away from Gwen towards the station door, finding that the Doctor had followed him outside.

"Down the road. There is the coroner's car. With any luck we'll catch up with them. They can't be going very fast in this weather," Jack replied while dragging Gwen towards the Doctor.

"Take her. Get her inside. I'll wait for you in the car. Hurry." It was going to cost them time, but he couldn't take the chance of Gwen getting hurt any worse than she already was.

Jack raced over to the black coroner's van. He searched his pockets, finding what he was looking for. His fingers were growing numb from the cold and he fumbled with the lock pick for what seemed like an eternity. He had been practising, but he was no good at this low-tech stuff. Finally the lock clicked. Jack slipped into the still warm car and he realized he was screwed. No key meant that he couldn't get the car started. He had heard of something called hot-wiring that was apparently a means of getting these polluting death traps started, but for once he was clueless.

The passenger door was pulled open, and the Doctor jumped inside.

"What are you waiting for? Move." The Doctor commanded before Jack had a chance to provide an explanation. Jack did as he was told and by the time, he got back into the car, the Doctor had the motor running. He didn't wait for Jack to buckle up, but as soon as the door was closed, he sped off into the snowstorm.

oOo

If Jack had been capable of dying, he would have seriously feared for his life with the Doctor at the wheel. The snowfall was getting heavier by the second, and in a few minutes time, the tracks left by the police car would be entirely obscured. The Doctor was going way faster than the speed limit, sending the car spinning during the narrow turns.

"There!" Jack suddenly spotted the squad car at the side of the road. It looked abandoned, the door open, motor still running. It had all been a little bit too easy. Taking out Anne, freeing the Doctor, allowing them to follow in the other car and now this. Jack got the strong feeling that he was walking into a trap.

The Doctor didn't seem to care. He leapt from the car before it had even come to a complete stop and rushed over to the squad car. Jack followed a few seconds later.

"Is she gone?" he asked.

"Tracks are leading into the woods." The Doctor started jogging into the dark undergrowth. Jack followed closely behind, secretly surprised at how fast the Doctor could run. He'd seen the Doctor run for his life more than once, but never quite at this speed.

The foliage was getting denser and denser, hindering their progress. Branches kept slapping into Jack's face. He slipped on the wet, snow-covered ground. By the time, he got back to his feet, the Doctor had disappeared in the dark. He seemed to be capable of navigating the forest without the benefit of any more than the pale light of the moon. In the bad lighting Jack couldn't have possibly read any tracks, but he suspected the Doctor was operating on a different sort of radar. Following the sound of the Doctor's rapid footfalls, Jack broke into a clearing.

The TARDIS was parked in the clearing, the Doctor standing in front of it, an expression of exasperation on his face. It took a second for Jack to understand what the problem was. He pushed past the Doctor, rummaging in his pockets until he found the object he was looking for buried deep in his pocket, where it had been ever since Jack had lost Rose and the Doctor on the space station.

The key worked just as well as the last time he had used it.

"I can't believe I gave you a key…or that I will be giving you a key any time soon," Jack heard the Doctor grumble as he followed him into the darkened TARDIS.

The lights came on as soon as the Doctor stepped in.

Everything looked exactly the way Jack remembered it. He hadn't stayed with the Doctor longer than a few months, but he felt like he was finally coming home. The reunion was cut short when Rose stepped into the console room. Without paying any attention to him and the Doctor, she started manipulating the TARDIS controls.

Her back turned, Jack saw his opportunity and lunged at her, intent on taking her down long enough for the Doctor to take the TARDIS someplace else.

Rose hit the floor along with him, but as soon as they had landed, she had already shaken Jack off like he weighed next to nothing and gotten back on her feet. Jack picked himself up from the floor, carefully keeping his distance from her for the moment in case she planned on repaying his efforts. But he wouldn't have needed to worry. Rose had turned her attention to the Doctor.

"Doctor, if you don't mind, would you please take the TARDIS to the co-ordinates I've provided."

"You know I will never do that."

"I didn't think so either. But maybe with a little bit of persuasion," she said with a cat-like smile.

At first, Jack didn't understand what she meant, but then, in a beam of green light, the thing he'd least expected happened. A Dalek materialized next to Rose.

"I should have known that a Dalek wouldn't commit suicide…unless you had a plan. And it seems that this time, you have new friends, too, with some very interesting technology," the Doctor remarked.

"Indeed we have," the creature sounded extraordinarily pleased.

"Good-bye, Jack." There was a trace of regret on her face, as if some small part of Rose was still in there, as she waved to him.

When Jack realized what was about to happen, it was already too late. The deadly ray caught him and it was all over.

oOo

The door seemed impossibly far away. Gwen was so cold; every breath burned in her lungs, every movement of her numb limbs sent spikes of pain along her nerves. She tried to walk, concentrating on setting one foot in front of the other, but she couldn't remain on her feet, her muscles refusing to yield to her brain. Gwen fell, fast and heavy. Landing on her hands and knees, her broken wrist gave as bone jarred against bone, sending her nerve endings screaming. The pain left her panting, tears in her eyes, but it shook her from her cold-induced daze. The cold and the pain suddenly didn't matter anymore. If she gave up, she would die. The thought was crystal clear in her mind and gave her strength when she had already run out.

Crawling on one hand and her knees, Gwen crawled forwards one inch at the time.

Her body was trembling with strain and cold. It became harder to move, harder to make her body respond to the commands of her brain. The strain sent more tears to her eyes and Gwen bit her lip, not wanting to allow herself to give in. Getting to the door was the only thing that mattered.

When the door suddenly miraculously opened and Owen and Officer Travis came rushing out, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The next thing she knew, she was pulled up. The world tilted and suddenly, everything was hot and her skin felt like it was on fire. Black spots started to cloud her vision and Gwen simply let go.

oOo

"Gwen." A slight shake to her shoulder woke her from her sleep. Gwen opened her eyes, blinking as the world slowly came back into focus. She was in the squad room. Around her was a thick grey blanket. Officer Travis was standing on front of her, holding a steaming mug. The sweet smell of hot chocolate was instantly reviving and Gwen gladly accepted.

"Thank you." The heat of the mug leeched into her cold hands. Gwen carefully took a sip of the sugary liquid. It tasted awful – greasy and too sweet, but right now, it was heavenly.

"You might be the mighty Torchwood, but this really isn't how it works. There are laws in this country and even you have to respect them. You turned this place into a slaughterhouse, released two brutal murderers and stole a police car, and you are still not willing to tell us what is going on. Who were these people?" Jordan demanded furiously of Owen.

"I can't tell you," Owen replied. He tried to sound confident, but Gwen could tell that he was floundering. She wasn't entirely clear about what had happened after Anne had suddenly gone crazy and started stabbing that young woman, but from what Jordan was saying, it sounded pretty bad.

"You mentioned your local coroner was examining the bodies from the hostel. I'll need to talk to him. Once the storm clears, we'll take the bodies to Cardiff, but until then, Torchwood is still in charge."

"I tried calling Dr. Strutz, but he wasn't answering his phone earlier. I figure he must have switched it off. He sometimes does this when he's working," Officer Travis said, walking over to where Owen and Jordan were standing.

"Find him. Tell him to stop working on those bodies, right now. I need all his notes and dictations," Owen ordered. Gwen had to admit that he was doing a better job being in charge than she would have given him credit for, but he wasn't nearly as confident as Jack.

Gwen took another sip of her drink, slowly starting to feel warm again.

"Hey, Gwen." Owen walked up to her. "How are you feeling?"

"Aside from a broken wrist, a few cuts and nearly freezing to death, I'm okay, I guess." Gwen didn't dare voice her greatest worry: that there was a chance the same thing that had happened to Anne and that girl Rose could happen to her, too. They'd both been cut: Rose's arm and the girl's forehead and then they had turned into killers. But, Gwen tried to tell herself, who was to say that they had ever been humans to start with? She had only been with them for less than half an hour.

"Do you remember what happened?" Owen asked gently, interrupting her grim train of thought.

"Sort of. Not everything. It doesn't all make sense," Gwen admitted, not sure what she should say, what Owen knew and not sure it even still mattered. Jack had left. He had left her to freeze to death in a snowstorm.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Remember Lisa?"

Gwen nodded.

"She tried to kill Jack. Twice. He went down, but he got up again. Just like that. I've been wondering ever since. And then today, she slashed his throat..."

"I know," Gwen interrupted, not able to bear having that conversation. "I know. He can't die. I asked him about it, but he wouldn't explain."

"But that's not possible!" Owen protested. "Who is he?"

"I don't know," Gwen said honestly. "All I know is that he left. He and the other guy drove away in the coroner's car. They went after Rose."

"So, he just left you?!" Owen sounded furious.

"I don't think he wanted to," Gwen mused. "DI Jordan? What can you tell me about the two people you arrested?"

Jordan walked over. "Not much. We found them right outside the hostel, him covered in blood. He had a fake police ID in the name of John Smith. We took them back here. They both refused to give their names. We printed them, but the phone lines have been down, so we couldn't run their prints."

"Did they say what they were doing at the hostel?"

"They claimed they just found the bodies while looking for a place to stay for the night. They couldn't tell us how they got there, though. We didn't find any abandoned cars in the area. As far as we know, they must have walked."

"Walked from where?" There was nothing in the area. The nearest village was almost twenty miles away from the hostel. It seemed unlikely that a murderer would try to flee on foot in this terrain.

"No idea." Jordan shrugged. "Your boss was convinced that they had nothing to do with all the killings, but I'm telling you – when you find two strangers covered in blood right next to a crime scene, you have your guy."

"Did you find any weapons on them?"

"No. We were going to call in the crime scene technicians tomorrow to have a look at the place. I figure they tossed the knife somewhere on the premises."

"Maybe," Gwen said pensively. From Jack's reaction, she had been able to tell that Jack had known Rose and the stranger.

"If you already know they didn't do it, why do you need all these details, anyways?"

"Uhm," Gwen began when a scream coming from the back of the building saved her. Moment's later, a pale and screaming Officer Travis bolted into the squad room.

"Ellen, what's wrong? Calm down." Jordan rushed over to her, trying to comfort his colleague. "He's dead. Dr. Strutz is dead," Travis gasped, burrowing her face in Jordan's shoulder.

"Where?" Owen asked.

"The…the cooler. He's…there is so much blood. Like all the others," Travis told them between sobs. "That's it, right? What you are not telling us. There is something out there and we're all going to die in here!" she screamed hysterically.

"No we aren't," Gwen told her with far more confidence than she felt.

"I'm going to have a look," Owen said and pulled out his gun.

"I'm coming with you, Gwen said.

"Stay behind me."

oOo

As far as deaths went, this was one of the worst Jack had ever experienced. Part of him was surprised to wake up at all. Of all the ways to die in the universe, Jack would have thought that a Dalek ray would manage to kill even him for good. But maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't the first time he'd been shot by a Dalek and lived to tell the tale. Just like the first time, while getting shot had hurt, it was the recovery that was really painful and not for the first time, Jack wished that once, just once he would stay dead. Still, Jack forced himself to open his eyes and pushed himself up on his elbows in order to get an idea of where he was.

It wasn't impressive. It was a cell – plain and simple. Four metal walls topped by a low ceiling. Going by first impressions, he could have done worse. The floor was dry, the temperature was cool, but adequate and the lighting almost friendly. What was less friendly was the expression on the Doctor's face as he watched Jack in silence.

"Hi." Jack waved weakly. "Something tells me that we got off on the wrong foot." He forced a smile, hoping that it wouldn't make his head explode.

"Captain Jack Harkness." He held out a hand, but the Doctor didn't take it.

"I take it we are already acquainted."

"I'm afraid so."

"Tell me one thing then. What possessed me when I let you set foot in the TARDIS?" The Doctor frowned.

"Is it because of the gun or the other thing?" Jack asked, trying to make light of the situation even though he really didn't feel like it.

"The other thing." The Doctor was dead serious. "The one where you came back to life after a Dalek shot you."

"I don't know. I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to, but I don't think it's a good idea…"

"Messing up the time-line? Usually not a good idea, I agree.

"You know I can't tell you."

"Yes, normally you couldn't, and I wouldn't even be asking. But this happened deliberately; the whole thing was orchestrated by the Daleks. I need to know what happened when we met. It's the only way to figure out what the Daleks want."

"I thought that was obvious. Kill us in the most painful way they can think of," Jack said jokingly, but immediately grew serious again.

"That too, yes. But you weren't part of the plan. At least not before they knew they couldn't kill you. Immortality, now that's something that would interest the Daleks. But they didn't know about it when they put this whole thing in motion. There is only one thing the Daleks really want – wipe out all other forms of life in the universe. It's what they are programmed to do."

"I know. We were up against the Daleks. The last time I saw you."

"Sounds like we are going to be pretty well acquainted. Or at least we would have been."

"I kissed you once." Jack couldn't resist making that comment.

The expression on the Doctor's face spoke of utter shock.

"Don't worry. I kissed Rose, too."

"You shouldn't be telling me. The less I know the better," the Doctor said and Jack got the impression that he wasn't just concerned about the timeline.

"Screw the timeline. We are not going to get out of here alive anyways."

"Point taken." The Doctor laughed mirthlessly, but immediately flinched in pain. "Ow."

"What happened to you?"

"The Daleks tried a few persuasion tactics. Nothing they haven't tried before," the Doctor answered flatly and Jack could tell he was lying.

There was a hissing sound and one of the walls melted, opening to a dark tunnel with round metal walls. Rose or whatever she was becoming stood in the opening. The changes were becoming more pronounced. Her eyes had turned completely black, no traces of humanity left. Her skin had turned green-ish grey with a silvery shine as if it was metal, not flesh. Rose eyed Jack with cat-like curiosity.

"It's good to see you again, Captain Harkness. You are a lucky man."

"If this is being lucky, your life must really…"

Jack fell silent when Rose stepped aside to make way for two humanoid figures, dragging a third one between them. The guards looked famished, their limbs stick thin, covered in rugged leathery skin. They were ugly, their faces rough cut, lip-less slits for mouths, tiny sharp teeth visible in them, noses that were just jagged flaps of skin and deep sunken grey eyes. The young man they were holding up looked out of place in this desolate place. He wore clothes Jack would have expected to see on the streets of Cardiff, not in some alien hellhole.

"Wake him up, Rose ordered. One of the guards slapped the man and he started to wake. His eyes were wide with panic as they roamed over Jack, the Doctor and the cell.

"Oh no. This can't be happening. This is all a dream," he whimpered, trying to wriggle out of the guards' grasp, but without success.

"Remember him, Doctor?" Rose asked.

To Jack's surprise, the Doctor nodded.

"You didn't seem too attached to Captain Harkness earlier. Let's see if you feel different about Adam." The guards released Adam from their grip. He tumbled to the ground, then struggled back to his feet.

"Rose, what's happening? You can't let them…" Adam screamed, as a blast fired by one of the guards hit him in the back. He fell forwards, landing partially inside their cell. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

"Adam. Adam, look at me!" The Doctor crouched over Adam, turning him on his side.

"Doctor…" Adam whispered, a thin line of blood running down his chin. He was struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Don't talk. Relax. Just relax." Adam sighed, and his eyes drifted shut. Jack glanced at the Doctor and knew that he knew as well. Adam was dying.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the Doctor whispered softly to Adam's dying form.

"Stop wasting time!" Rose commanded sharply. The Doctor rose to his feet again. "You are making a mistake. I will not co-operate with the Daleks no matter what you do."

"Don't be so sure, Doctor. You have how many lives left? Maybe you'll be more co-operative once you are a down a few. I hear regeneration is very hard on the mind of a time lord. You will give us the secret of immortality."

"Stop it!" Jack stepped forwards. "He can't tell you. He doesn't know. If you want to know, take it up with me."

"You're offering your co-operation?" Surprise echoed in the creature's voice.

"I am." Jack took another step towards the creature, standing nose to nose with her. It went against all his instincts for self-preservation, which Jack had always considered pretty well-developed, but since becoming immortal, Jack found himself taking more and more chances.

"Take him." The order was barely spoken when the two guards already held him in a solid grip. Despite their skinny frames, their long fingers were digging into his arms like steel. Jack expected to be frog-marched out of the cell, off for a round of torture and probably death when he heard a howling scream.

He turned around. The scream was coming from the creature using Rose's body. She was on her hands and knees howling in pain. There was something terribly wrong with her – her silver skin was rippling and blistering, almost as if it was boiling. The wounds that had been inflicted on Rose's body were re-opening. Dark green liquid was oozing from her side and her left arm. The Doctor and Jack stood by helplessly as Rose collapsed to the floor, her skin turning charred black. Her body twitched as her screams died down to whimpers.

"What's happening to her?" Jack asked, afraid of the answer.

"I can't say for sure, but I think the effects of the infection are wearing off."

The Doctor gently stroked Rose's cheek, brushing away the flakes of blackened flesh, revealing unblemished skin underneath.

"Give me your shirt," the Doctor suddenly demanded

"What?!"

"The virus healed her injuries, but now it's wearing off."

It was only then that Jack noticed the grizzly wound that was forming on Rose's side and abdomen. It looked like she was slowly being stabbed from the inside out. The same was happening to her left arm, where Jack's bullet had torn through hours earlier. He quickly stripped down to his tee-shirt and handed his shirt to the Doctor, who expertly fashioned two bandages out of it.

"Do you think that was part of the plan?" Jack asked, mentally running through the possibilities as he noticed that the two guards were gone and the cell wall was back in place.

"I don't think so. Rose was their leverage. The Daleks knew…." the Doctor broke off and turned back to adjusting Rose's bandages.

"They knew you wouldn't cave. Not for me, not for Adam." Jack didn't know how long the Doctor had known Adam, but he hadn't gotten the impression that they had been very well acquainted.

"I won't for Rose either," The Doctor said tonelessly. "I can't give in to the Daleks."

Jack nodded. "I know," he said simply. The Doctor looked at him and for a moment Jack thought he was going to ask about their history, but he turned his attention back to Rose, brushing more of the charred alien flesh from her face.

"Rose! Come on, wake up!" the Doctor demanded, gently shaking Rose's shoulder.

"Mhm, five more minutes, Mom," Rose mumbled, trying to roll away from the Doctor's grip

"Not now, Rose."

"Doctor?" Rose's eyes flew open. Jack was relieved to see that they were back to their natural colour.

"I'm here." The Doctor gripped her hand.

"I'm sorry," Rose whispered.

"It's all right. It's not your fault. I will get us out of here."

"No," Rose protested weakly. "They will infect you, as soon as they are sure."

"Sure of what?" Jack asked, earning himself a stern look from the Doctor.

"That the virus will work on a time lord," Rose whispered. "The others….just tests."

"How does it work, how do they exercise control over the infected?" The Doctor asked, all business now.

"Nano bots… as signal receptors," Rose managed between coughs. She was weakening quickly.

The Doctor nodded. "It's all right, Rose. Try to get some rest." The Doctor squeezed Rose's hand and didn't let go until she had fallen unconscious again.

"What do you think she meant?" Jack asked after a few minutes of tense silence.

"It's obvious. Whoever the Daleks persuaded to help them has some very powerful nano-technology. They have engineered nano-bots that act like a virus, capable of infecting a person, and taking over their whole body."

"But how do they control them?" Jack asked, not quite seeing what the Doctor meant.

"Of course you wouldn't notice. There is a very strong psychic field in these tunnels. It's probably what they use to control the infected."

"Can you…dial into it or something, to find out what they are up to?"

"I tried, but I can't." The Doctor shook his head. "I think it's an artificially generated psychic field. There must be a very strong transmitter somewhere."

"As in somewhere close by or as in somewhere on this planet?"

"Pretty close by. No more than ten miles, I would say."

"At least it isn't raining," Jack remarked dryly. "You look after Rose, I'll figure out a way to get us out of here."

The Doctor didn't look convinced, but he said nothing.

TBC


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: Apologies for the delay. The story _is_ finished, but I'm currently rather busy with a Ficathon project and haven't had the time to work on editing this story. Have a good Sunday everyone and I hope you enjoy this story!

oOo

They had searched the entire building, top to bottom, twice. Once on their own, then again with the help of Travis and Jordan. They had found nothing. What they found was that there were two bodies missing from the morgue. From what it looked like, Dr. Strutz had been in the process of examining them, when something must have happened. They had found Dr. Strutz in the cooler next to the morgue, but Owen had determined that he hadn't died of hypothermia, but he had been stabbed to death outside the cooler as attested by the blood pool on the floor in the morgue. Not exactly a great intellectual leap there.

The bodies from the hostel were still in the cooler where they belonged. A cursory exam had revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Like the victims in the case they had investigated earlier in the day, they had all been stabbed to death. Overkill in every case. Someone had taken their time and stabbed them dozens of times with great speed and strength. Like that girl Anne or whatever she really was. Owen would have loved to chalk up the whole affair to a case of mutants who loved their knives just a bit too much. With all the stuff that kept falling through the rift, who knew? But there was too much that didn't fit. As random as the murders seemed at first glance, Owen was convinced that there was some kind of plan at work. He didn't believe in coincidences and even if he did, it would have been a very big one, if they had just accidentally been run off the road, leading them to go back to the police station where they'd run into Rose and John Smith…or whoever they were.

"Have you ever asked Jack what he was doing before Torchwood?" Gwen suddenly asked. Owen looked up from the body he was examining and turned to Gwen. "I tried to have a look at his file, but it's all locked. I never asked him personally though. Figured I would be the last person he'd tell. Why, did he ever tell you?"

"No," Gwen replied and she sounded genuinely sad. "I found this." She held up something for Owen to see. It looked like a gun out of a sci-fi movie. "Jack used it… in the squad room. I wonder where he got it from. I've never seen him use it, just this antique pistol of his--wherever he got that from."

"There is tons of stuff like that in the archives. It's probably something that fell through the rift along with all the other junk," Owen answered.

"You should take it." Gwen handed it to him.

"Why?"

"You saw what happened to Rose and Anne. They got cut, they turned into killing mutants," Gwen said grimly.

"Listen," Owen grabbed Gwen by the shoulders a little harder than necessary. "That is not going to happen to you. We have no idea what they were. There is nothing that says the same thing is going to happen to you."

"There is. I can feel it." Gwen tore herself from Owen's grip. "I don't want to end up hurting people. I don't want to end up hurting you."

"It's normal for you to feel off. You've been through a lot today. You won't hurt anyone. It's not in you."

"And you know that how? Owen, I can feel it. For once take me seriously. I feel like I'm about to jump out of my skin, my head feels like it's going to explode." Gwen started pacing restlessly.

"Gwen, calm down." Owen took her by the hands and tried to guide her over to the only chair in the morgue, but the moment he touched Gwen, she slapped him in the face, with the hand that had been broken before.

"Gwen, what the…." Owen hadn't seen this coming and stared at her wrist.

"Don't touch me." Gwen resumed her pacing. "You see, it's already starting. It's like I can't control myself. Like there is something inside me that wants to hurt people. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to slap you, it's just that…that feeling…." Gwen rambled on. Suddenly, she came to a stop. "I can't do this."

"What do you mean?" Owen asked. His confusion changed to alarm when he saw Gwen reach for her pocket. But instead of a gun, as he had feared, she pulled out of pair of handcuffs.

"Owen, please. I want to make sure I don't hurt you or anyone else." Gwen indicated the metal shelf behind her and handed the cuffs to Owen.

"I really don't think this is a good idea. What if something happens?" Owen protested even as he did as Gwen had asked, cuffing her formerly broken wrist to the side-beam of the metal shelf.

"Owen."

"Don't worry. I'm sure…"

"Owen!" Gwen yelled. "Behind you!"

Owen whirled around, but it was too late. The last thing he saw was an ash-grey face, distorted in a toothy smile.

oOo

The world Owen woke up to was not friendly. The pounding ache in his head was accompanied by a bone-deep sensation of cold. Instinctively, he tried to wrap his arms around himself, in an effort to keep warm, but all he accomplished was transforming the dull throb in his head into an aggressive stab of pain. No longer able to ignore either the cold or the pain, Owen opened his eyes and found himself staring at concrete. Carefully, he leveraged himself into a sitting position, trying to get a better overview of his surroundings. Immediately, he realized why he was freezing and his heart sank.

"How do you feel?"

"Cold. I suspect it's only going to get colder."

"I'm afraid so. We're trapped."

"How'd that happen?"

"Long story," Gwen replied, not looking at him. It wasn't immediately obvious in the dim light, but Gwen's skin had taken on a grey colour and Owen suspected that it wasn't from the cold. When he saw the faint tendrils of green sneaking away from the cuts on her neck, fear took hold of Owen. The last time, he'd seen Gwen she'd been handcuffed to a metal shelf. Even if she had the key, with her injured wrist, she couldn't have possibly freed herself. Unless her wrist had already healed.

"We have time." Owen waved at their concrete prison, trying to seem unconcerned.

"The corpse on the table – it came back to life," Gwen explained.

"What?"

"Like Rose. She simply got up. She hit you in the head with the dictaphone."

"I feel really stupid right now." Despite the gravity of their situation, Owen couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed. Not only did he get beaten up by a girl, he'd managed to get beaten up with his own dictaphone. It really wasn't his day.

"Don't." Gwen didn't appear to appreciate the humour. "She was going to grab a knife, so I…" Gwen hesitated. "I broke her neck."

"But you were..."

"I know. I don't know how I did it. I saw her grab the knife and the next thing I knew…I had snapped her neck," Gwen said in a low voice. "The strange thing is, since we've been locked in here, I'm actually feeling better. Not that I expect you to believe that," she added.

"I believe you." Owen would have liked to say something else, something reassuring preferably, but he couldn't think of anything. His head hurt, he was starting to be hypothermic and Gwen could snap at any moment. The world really was out to get him, Owen decided.

"Can I ask you something?" Gwen asked after they had spent several minutes in silence.

"Sure," Owen answered, dreading what was to come.

"When you examined Anne, after she was dead, I mean, did you notice anything different about her?"

"No," Owen answered, wondering where the conversation was headed.

"The thing is - she back to life. And I wonder why."

"Maybe because she got shot in the head."

"Maybe." Gwen shrugged. "I wonder if this works only with bullets. It worked when I broke that woman's neck."

"Gwen!" Owen had been wondering if the cold was already getting to Gwen, but now he saw what she was holding in her good hand. It was the blaster Jack had left behind. "Give me that!"

To his great relief, Gwen did as he asked.

"Don't even think about it."

"Owen, I'm changing. I'm changing into something horrible. I think the cold in here is slowing things down, but it's already too late. We are locked in here. I already tried the door, even tried to shoot it open, but it's useless." Gwen paused. "What I'm trying to say is…I want you to promise me that you'll use the gun if it comes to that."

Her words hit Owen like a sledgehammer. He should have seen this coming, but he hadn't, hadn't wanted to.

"Promise me." The desperation in Gwen's voice cut into him like a knife. He knew he couldn't refuse. If he did and, against all probability, they did get out of this safe and sound, Gwen would never forgive him. Jack, in his place, probably wouldn't be this gutless, but hadn't he once sworn to do no harm? No matter how much he wanted to, Owen couldn't make that promise.

"I'm sorry, Owen." Owen looked at her, not sure what she meant. Before he had a chance to ask her, she had snatched the blaster from his grip, an easy feat with her increased strength. Her hands shaking, she slowly raised the gun to the side of her head.

"Don't!" Owen leapt to try and stop her, but it was too late. Gwen had already pulled the trigger and a blue bolt of energy hit her straight in the head.

Her body sagged to the ground instantly. Owen closed his eyes, as if he could shut out the reality of what had just happened so easily. He had failed, truly and utterly failed. He was a doctor and even though he tried to avoid living patients, he was supposed to stop people from dying.

Owen wasn't sure what was worse, freezing to death, having let his boss bleed to death or not having had to guts to do what Gwen needed him to do. If he hadn't backed out, she probably wouldn't have shot herself. This definitely qualified as the worst day of his life. He was going to die and it wasn't nearly as glamorous as he had secretly hoped for. Giving up his life to save the day, save Earth, save the girl--any of those would have been more glorious and preferable to death by stupidity.

It was the soft sound of breath that tore Owen from his misery. His eyes flew open and settled on Gwen. Before his eyes, she was changing. Into what he couldn't tell at first – her skin was blistering and bubbling. Within seconds it blackened and cracked. Owen gingerly reached out to touch her face. Under his fingers the charred skin came off in large flakes, leaving perfect, human skin underneath. Gwen had done it! Owen was flooded with elation despite the cold.

TBC


	7. Chapter 6

oOo

Surprisingly, hypothermia had not been on the list of ways Gwen had thought she could die in her line of work. But if this was what freezing to death felt like, it wasn't all that bad, Gwen decided. She didn't even feel cold anymore and the jittering had also stopped a while ago. She should probably be worried about that, but her mind seemed to have slowed down to a pleasant idle pace. She felt almost peaceful. To know that she wouldn't turn into a mutated killing machine was extremely comforting. She had been ready to risk it all when she had pulled the trigger, risking her life on a wild guess.

But the gamble had paid off. She had hoped that she would be able to stop herself from changing into something horrible, into one of the things she fought for a living. Death by hypothermia didn't seem like such a bad bargain in exchange.

The moment she had woken up, she had known that she was herself again. She didn't need to look at her hand and see her skin back to its proper colour to know that the terrible thing inside of her was dead. Gwen's gaze fell over to Owen and she realized with a pang of regret that she wasn't alone.

"Owen." Her tongue felt heavy and it took enormous effort to form the words.

"Hmm."

"I'm sorry," Gwen managed to say, her words somewhat slurred.

"For what?" Owen sounded surprised.

"Getting you locked in here."

"You saved me, from that thing, remember?" Owen squeezed her hand so hard it hurt. "It's me who should be sorry."

"No…" Gwen tried, but she was running out of strength fast. The urge to close her eyes was starting to become overwhelming.

"Don't try to talk. Save your strength. We're going to get out of here," Owen said with false confidence.

"Liar." Gwen let her eyes drift closed, a small smile playing on her face. The beautiful world of her dreams was calling to her as images started forming in her mind. It was every bit as beautiful as she had just known it would be. Just as the images became more vibrant and the colours intensified, a loud noise pulled her away, back to the grey, cold world of their concrete prison.

Belatedly she became aware of someone shaking her. Gwen forced her eyes open and found herself looking up at Owen's grinning face.

"Gwen! We're going to be okay!" He kept shaking her vigorously.

Gwen blinked in confusion, wondering if she was still dreaming, but then she saw Ianto in the open door and she realized that she really was awake…and that she was going to live after all. And part of her was sorry to say good-bye to whatever world she had touched.

oOo

"Got it!" Finally, after hours of trying, Jack had found the right frequency to disrupt the force shield that kept them locked in their cell.

"Got what?"

"Our way out of here. This thing won't work on the Daleks anyways, so I thought I might as well try to see if I could break us out of here with that sonic screwdriver of yours. It isn't such a bad thing to be carrying around after all." Jack handed the device back to the Doctor. When he got a questioning look, he explained, "I grabbed it out of the property locker at the police station. I figured we might need it later on."

The Doctor snatched the sonic screwdriver from his hands. "You could have told me earlier." He switched on the device, running it along the length of Rose's body, his frown deepening as he did so.

"How is she?"

"Not good. With the nano-bots in her blood destroying themselves, the influence of the psychic network is getting weaker. The Daleks won't be able to control her anymore. But the problem is the network sustains itself by drawing energy from those who are connected to it. It's still drawing energy from Rose. Without the nano-bots constantly repairing her body, it doesn't look good for her."

"How long?"

"Two, maybe three hours."

"What can we do?"

"We need to get her to the TARDIS. I can program her to block out the network's signal and I should have some medical supplies around as well."

"Even if we do find it before anyone notices we're missing, it's bound to be guarded pretty well. I could probably rig up a little boom with the power cell of the sonic screwdriver and some other stuff I happen to have stashed away. It could be enough to take out one or two Daleks or at least keep them from shooting us."

"We can't leave." The Doctor shook his head. "Rose is in no shape to go anywhere and we can't leave her here. It's only a matter of time until the Daleks or their new friends come back. If they can't control her, Rose is useless for them. They'll kill her."

"Speaking of the Daleks – why are they leaving us alone? Even if they have no more control over Rose, they could still be using her as leverage on you. I know I would."

"It wouldn't work. They know that," the Doctor said grimly. "I let them shoot you, remember?"

"Point taken." Jack couldn't even imagine how much the Doctor hated the Daleks. He didn't know the full story of what had happened between the Doctor's people and the Daleks, but he'd never seen the Doctor to be capable of true hate, until they had encountered the Daleks on the space station. "But what if we simply disabled the transmitter that creates the psychic field? You said it was close by."

"That might just work," the Doctor admitted. "It might also borrow us some time."

"Let's go." The Doctor got to his feet.

"I think that's a bad idea. You they can kill, they can't kill me."

"Can you shut down the signal?" the Doctor asked.

"I could….shoot it," Jack said and shrugged

"With what, if I may ask?"

"Oh, you would be surprised…." Jack said, but sobered up quickly. "Is Rose going to be all right while we're gone?" For all the joking and forced levity, Jack wasn't overly optimistic about their situation. He had no idea how Rose and the Doctor had beaten the Daleks the last time. In fact, he could only assume that they had. He had tried to think of a reason as to why they would have left him behind, but he simply couldn't think of any satisfying explanation. It was starting to look less likely that he would get any answers at all and more likely that they would meet an unpleasant end at the hands of the Daleks. He was starting to wonder if he'd really done the right thing chasing after Rose and the Doctor, abandoning Torchwood in return.

"Okay, let's go." Jack got to his feet. He still felt a bit woozy from being shot and had to steady himself on the wall for a second.

"Just a minute. You wouldn't happen to have the rest of the things the police confiscated?"

"Not everything." Jack rummaged in the pockets of his coat and turned over the collection of random objects back to the Doctor.

The Doctor seemed actually appreciative, for the first time since they had met at the police station. He picked a piece of paper and pen out of the heap before stuffing the rest of it into the pockets of his jacket. He scribbled down something, before slipping the note into Rose's pocket.

oOo

Jack had long since lost track of the many turns they had taken. Their escape had led them into a vast network of interconnected tunnels, extending over dozen of stories, presumably deep underground somewhere.

Every tunnel, every level looked the same as the last, and the next, stretching endlessly into the night. Their footsteps were echoing off the rounded metal walls, making their escape anything but stealthy. They could probably be heard a mile away. But they had been walking for almost an hour and there was no sign that their escape had been detected.

The Doctor was leading the way, holding the sonic screwdriver high up in front of him. Jack wondered whether the versatile device served only as a light source and occasional lock pick or if the Doctor was able to glean some other information from its flickering light. He was more or less following the Doctor blindly, expecting the Daleks to catch up with them any moment when, in front of him, the Doctor suddenly bounced back and landed on the floor. Not seeing any obstacle, Jack quickly hurried to where the Doctor was, but he too walked into an invisible wall.

By the time Jack had picked himself off the floor, the Doctor was already examining the invisible obstacle.

"This is amazing!" he proclaimed, running his hand over it. "A low energy force shield, quite ingenious and good for us, too."

"Can you break through it?"

"Too early to tell."

"Then what's the good part?" Jack asked, a bit confused.

"No lethal 'zap'. Not that it would concern you, but I'm rather attached to myself."

"Trust me, dying isn't exactly fun," Jack said, wishing the Doctor wouldn't make light of his immortality.

"I know," the Doctor replied simply and started doing something with the sonic screwdriver that made the force shield glow light blue. "Adaptive force shield," he explained. "Impressive. This might take a while."

"Let me know if I can help." Jack leaned against the wall behind him. He still felt tired from when the Dalek had shot him.

oOo

Just about when Jack had resigned himself to the fact that they would still be trying to disable the force shield when the Daleks caught up with them, it lit up brightly before vanishing.

"Great!" Jack was more than anxious to get going again. Almost three hours had passed since they had left Rose. Even if Rose managed to hang on long enough, the Daleks were going to catch up with them any moment. Jack was surprised that they hadn't already. It wasn't like them to be sloppy. Together, they had to rate some pretty tight security.

"That wasn't me," the Doctor told him. "We should be careful."

Jack was about to reply when he walked into a wall for the second time that day. Rubbing his nose, Jack turned around to look for the Doctor only to discover that they were locked in. They were trapped in a corridor maybe one meter deep, between two force shields.

"That's just…" Jack started but stopped dead when he noticed the group of people who were suddenly standing in front of the force shield like they had just appeared out of thin air. Jack couldn't even tell if they were men or women, provided that their biology made that distinction, but they looked almost exactly like the guards that had accompanied Rose earlier.

"Whatever you think we're doing, this isn't what it looks like," Jack said, really hoping that the force shields were capable of stopping whatever their rather impressive looking guns were firing. Despite the attempt at humour, the group didn't flinch.

"If I may ask, is there a reason the Daleks haven't shown up yet, or are you simply doing their bidding?"

The provocation seemed to do it. One of the group took a step forward, stepping up right to the force shield. Despite the shield between them, he seemed to be hiding behind his gun.

"I'm Arin. I believe I'm speaking for all of my people when I tell you that we are very well capable of thinking for ourselves, Doctor."

"I seriously doubt that. If you did, you wouldn't be working with the Daleks," Jack said, hoping provocation was indeed the way to go.

"Our alliance with the Daleks is a mutual one. It will change the history of both our people for the better."

"I'm certain the Daleks will be getting what they want. They already have – it's me they want. It's only a matter of time until they turn on you. You have nothing to offer to them."

"We know. That is why we have hidden your escape from the Daleks—for the moment, at least. But that can change quickly," Arin threatened.

"What do you want?" the Doctor asked, sounding almost innerved.

"We need you to save us."

"From the Daleks?" Jack asked.

"No," Arin replied. Jack was glad because that would have been quite a tall order, since they couldn't even save themselves at the moment.

"We would never have entered into an alliance with the Daleks if we weren't desperate. We used to live on the surface, on the surface of a beautiful world our ancestors colonized long ago. But one day there was an accident in one of our research facilities. A deadly virus escaped. It spread over the entire planet and destroyed everything—every plant, every animal died within days. We are all descendants of the only survivors – a lucky few who were able to flee in time. For centuries, we've lived underground away from the contamination on the surface, but our group is getting smaller every year. There are only a dozen of us left now and we are running out of time. In a few days, our power reserves will be used up."

"What exactly makes you think that we can help you? You surely have been searching for a cure all this time," the Doctor asked the question that had been on Jack's mind.

"We tried to preserve the knowledge of our people, but most of it hasn't survived. The first settlers underground recorded everything they knew about the virus and about what life was like on the surface before. Over the years, some of the records have been lost. All we have is what we and our ancestors have been able to learn about the virus. We allowed the Daleks to use the virus to infect your friend and lure you here in exchange for their help with finding a cure. They modified the virus to their needs, but their plan only drained our power reserves. We had lost almost all hope until we saw what happened to your friend Rose. Before, we had thought it impossible to reverse the effects of the virus," Arin explained.

"I'm sorry, but…"

Jack quickly interrupted the Doctor. "What do we get in exchange?"

"You freedom, of course," Arin replied as if it had been evident.

"I'm not sure I can do what you are asking, even though I'm pretty good at those kinds of things. I'll try. But I'll need access to my ship."

"The blue box you arrived in?" Arin asked suspiciously. "I don't think it would be wise for us to allow you access to your ship. What is going to stop you from fleeing from this world."

"I'm convinced the Daleks are already making sure of that. Rose may be cured of the virus but she needs help. This psychic field you have down here is harming her. I need to get her to my ship. I can program it to shield those frequencies and I need to treat her injuries," the Doctor explained. "But, of course the Daleks are keeping the TARDIS well guarded and I bet they didn't trust their allies with that. But, is it possible to switch off the signal entirely? It might save you a lot of power."

"I'm afraid that is not possible. When the virus hit our world, one hundred of the most talented artists, brightest scientists and leaders were placed in suspended animation. At least their bodies were; their minds are alive, connected to each other, virtual representation of what our world used to be like."

"That sounds like your ancestors got the bad end of the deal. They get a nice virtual world and you are stuck down here."

Jack wondered if the Doctor was really serious. He appeared to be, but from where Jack was sitting, being frozen for eternity was about as bad as it got. Walking around forever was bad enough.

"Is it possible for me to have a closer look at your hibernation system?" the Doctor asked, presumably with the same thing in mind as Jack. It was a far cry from an ideal solution, but they might be able to buy Rose some more time. If it wasn't already too late. Rose was dying while they were busy digging their own graves. What they needed was a deal with the Daleks, if anything would get them out of this. But the Daleks didn't do deals and even if they did, neither Jack nor the Doctor would trust them to honour their bargain.

"Why would you want to do that, except for sabotage? The Daleks have warned us that you weren't to be trusted."

"It figures they would say that," the Doctor grumbled. "I don't want to sabotage anything. I want to help you. To do that I need to know as much about the virus as I can," the Doctor said.

"If you promise to honour our agreement, you will have access to all our records and research data, including the data that is being recorded by the hibernation units. We have been monitoring them closely for the past few decades as the equipment has started to fail. Now we have to make almost daily repairs, just to keep it going."

"I might be able to help you with that. I'm good with machines," the Doctor told them.

"Then it is agreed." The force shields lit up for a moment and disappeared.

"Doctor, Iyan, our head mechanic will show you the monitoring system. Captain Harkness, you'll be coming with me. The research facilities are protected by several layers of force shields as well as biometric and mechanical locks. You will be safe there."

And unable to escape, Jack thought to himself as they marched off into the dark heart of the complex.

TBC


	8. Chapter 7

oOo

The sound of the sirens was fading, just as the streaks of sunlight filtered in through the window. The snow that had fallen so liberally the previous night was gone like it had never been there. , It was as if the previous night had been nothing more than a bad dream, if it hadn't been for the blood from Gwen and the two police officers.

Owen was sitting in the squad room, wrapped in an ugly grey blanket, drinking a cup of disgustingly sweet hot chocolate that Ianto had whipped up from somewhere. Tosh was on the phone with at least four people at the same time, trying to co-ordinate a convincing cover story for the murders.

"Tosh, Owen. I've gone through everything. There is no sign of Jack. There is a lot of blood though, but I didn't find his…his body," Ianto announced as he walked into the squad room.

"He's not dead." Owen spoke for the first time since he'd refused to go to the hospital. He was tired and if he was honest, he just wanted to go out and get himself so drunk that he didn't care anymore about the mess that was his life.

"He left. Walked away." Owen wanted to be furious with Jack, but he couldn't quite muster the energy. At least, he thought morosely, Jack was probably out of the running as far as competition was concerned. Considering that Gwen would probably never talk to him again, this is was pretty much the only silver lining.

"Jack just walked away?" Tosh asked. "I can't believe he did that. What happened? Didn't he say anything?"

"No." Owen took another sip of the awful beverage. "He didn't say anything. He ran off after this guy the locals had arrested. I have no idea who he was, but it looked like they knew each other pretty well."

"So, what was this all about? Did you get whoever killed all those people?" Tosh asked. "If they are still on the loose, we have to do more than just tell the press what to print."

"I've been listening to the police scanner and there has been nothing," Ianto told them. "If they are still out there, they stopped killing. We had the police put up road blocks. So far nothing has turned up. So, what exactly happened last night?"

Owen put the mug down on the desk in front of him. He really didn't feel like thinking right now and neither did his brain, but the job was calling. Owen didn't see any drinks in his near future, so he might as well get to work. At least he didn't have to think about Gwen that way.

oOo

Gwen hadn't thought she would ever feel warm again, but now that she did, and her body would be content to drift off to sleep, it was her mind that didn't let her rest.

She hadn't told anyone, but those images that she had seen when she was locked in the freezer, the images she had thought belonged to another world--a world that was maybe waiting for them after this life--they were still there. At first, they had only come when she had closed her eyes, but they were becoming more aggressive. Even with her eyes open, they kept coming to her in flashes. She saw flourishing cities built entirely out of white stone, stunning sunsets setting fire to a purple sky, dark forests and boundless oceans. They were breathtakingly beautiful and so intense that Gwen could almost feel the breeze on her skin and the sand beneath her feet. They were like the most intense dream she had ever had, only so much more vibrant.

But as beautiful as they were, Gwen was afraid to give in. She was afraid to turn herself over to the draw of the images, because deep down, she could sense that there was something beyond the images. Something was terrible and ugly lurking just beyond the reach of her mind and it was calling to her.

Gwen sat up with a start, discarding the possibility for sleep. She reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and took a long drink. The sensation of the cool liquid flowing down her throat was refreshing, anchoring her in the present surroundings of the hospital room.

She looked around, contemplating her options when a new image flashed in front of her eyes. It was different this time. The darkness she had felt before, it was there now. Dimly lit tunnels constructed of corroded metals, piping running along the rounded walls and low ceilings. There were sounds as well, filling her head: metal scraping on metal, dripping water, footsteps and screams. The most frightening were the screams--howling screams that echoed along the tunnels.

Gwen slapped her hands over her ears, willing the visions to stop, but they didn't. Then as sudden the images had appeared, they receded and Gwen found herself alone again in the noisy silence of her hospital room. Panting, Gwen got up. Using the wall to steady herself, she made her way to the wardrobe. It took her a few tries to work the knob, but she eventually managed to open the wardrobe. Her clothes were still damp and stained with blood. Gwen didn't care. She had to get away. She had to get back to Torchwood—to find answers to prove to herself that she wasn't losing her mind.

As she struggled with her clothes, a new wave of sounds and images flooded her brain. People, hundreds of them, were changing, undergoing the same mutations that had afflicted her. But while her transformation had been slow and painless, these people were in agony. They were screaming, writhing in pain. There were other things: images of incredible destruction. Cities, even entire worlds were laid to waste before her eyes. The grand cities were reduced to ashes, countless bodies littering the streets. Biting her lip, Gwen struggled not to scream. She had never seen so much death and suffering. The images were infused with emotions that threatened to overtake her. They were bleak emotions – hate, fear, terror. Gwen could feel them like they were her own. It was like someone had compiled the most horrific events in history into a slideshow.

Vision and memory were mingling when images of Jack filtered into her mind. She tried to hold on to them, tried to find a point of focus in the flood of images. She tried to concentrate on Jack and the man from the police station who was with him now. The locations changed, but not the images - Jack being shot, Jack dying and Jack getting back up again. Sickened, Gwen rushed outside, in the quest for fresh air.

The corridors seemed to fly past her in independent motion, as Gwen was only distantly aware of her own actions as she fled from the hospital.

It was only when she stepped outside and the cold wind blew in her face that she realized where she was. Her mind cleared instantly, the carnival of sounds and sights making way to an acute awareness of her surroundings. It felt like she was observing everything from far above, but at the same time her senses were sharper than ever. Her mind was suddenly able to pick up the smallest details – down to the pattern of the scarf of the woman across the streets and overhear what people were saying fifty feet away. The smell of the cars' exhaust fumes was becoming suffocating and Gwen started coughing. Spotting a taxi stand further down the road, she started walking with single-minded determination.

She knew what she had to do.

TBC


	9. Chapter 8

oOo

Gwen could feel the cameras following every one of her motions as she made her way down to the dungeon, home to whatever dangerous aliens they had been able to take off the street. It was early evening, a time of day when the team would normally still be at work, but Gwen wasn't worried about detection. She had known that the hub was deserted the moment she had set foot in it. Since her last vision, her senses had been sharper than ever. It was like a veil had been removed; she could see the movements of the cogs and levers laid bare. She saw the Dalek plan and the virus for what it was – a means to an end. But even now she couldn't see the invisible hand that moved it all. The mysterious man from the police station, he was to key to it. She needed to get to him and Jack and tell them what she had learned about the virus and Torchwood held the only person who could help her do that.

Gwen usually tried not to think about the creatures locked in the dungeon. They were dangerous. Most of them would kill innocent people if left to roam the streets. Still, part of Gwen couldn't help feeling sorry for them. She couldn't imagine what it had to be like, locked up all alone on some strange planet. Unlike the human criminals she used to deal with in her work for the police, these creatures acted on their instincts, did what they were programmed to do. They punished them for it. She strode along the row of cells, contemplating their inhabitants until she found what she was looking for.

It looked like an oversized squirrel, with three-inch long claws. They'd captured it a few weeks ago, haunting a city park. As far as they new, it wasn't in the habit of attacking people. No deaths or injuries had been reported to the police, but the dozens of reports of sighting of a monster in the park had become a PR nightmare.

Gwen swiftly unlocked the cell and hurried back upstairs. Before she reached the main level again, alarms started blaring loudly. Gwen didn't pay them any mind as the dungeon went into automatic lockdown behind her. This would keep her co-workers busy should they return before she was done.

For a moment, she contemplated the screen, unsure what to do. Gwen took a deep breath. The protestation of her conscious mind with all its small-minded fears was starting to fade as she let the part of her mind that was slowly starting to awake take over and carry her through the task at hand with practise and ease. It was only a matter of minutes until she had full access to the security system of the hub. First she disabled the cameras and deleted and recorded footage, before disabling the locks to archives. They held thousands, if not miliions, of items of alien technology, but there was only one item she was interested in.

oOo

The glove was heavy in her hand a she entered the morgue. She laid the glove down on a side table while she went looking for Anne. She found her body in one of the coolers and easily managed to manoeuvre her onto the exam table. Gwen took the glove, paused for a moment as she contemplated the small round bullet hole in the little girl's forehead. It was ugly and seemed out of place. Laid out on a slab, Anne looked small and frail and it seemed impossible that she could have been responsible for multiple murders, including that of her own parents. Gwen was well aware that it wasn't Anne, the six-year old, who had committed those atrocities, but something evil and cunning using her innocent appearance. She slipped the glove over her hand. At first, the metal felt cold and heavy, but it immediately warmed, as if it was already responding to her. Relying solely on the memory of Suzie using the glove, Gwen went to work. She reached out and touched the back of Anne's head with the glove. Nothing happened at first. She was about to give up in defeat, when her skin started to tingle. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation. Before her eyes, the last moments of Anne's life, or at least the life of her body, flashed before her eyes. She saw the look of hatred and fear on Jack's eyes before he had shot her in the head.

There was more, inviting her to delve deeper. Gwen closed her eyes, trying to follow the lead of the glove.

Anne woke with a sudden gasp, sending Gwen reeling backwards. Anne screamed, her arms and legs flailing. Gwen fought to hold her down as Anne still seemed to possess much of the strength the virus had given her while Gwen's extra strength was fading fast. Gwen was losing the struggle when Anne managed to push herself up and send her flying backwards. Gwen's head hit the metal edge of one of the cooler doors and for a moment silver spots were dancing across her vision. She reached a hand to the back of her head. Blood stuck to her fingers. Gwen grappled to her feet, trying to see where Anne had gone. Anne hadn't gotten far, her strength obviously already waning. Gwen caught up with her and took her by the hand, forcing Anne to look at her.

"Anne! Anne, listen to me. I know you are frightened, but you need to listen to me."

Gwen couldn't tell if Anne understood her words, but she stopped squirming.

Gwen hurriedly continued, afraid that Anne was slipping away from her for good.

"There isn't much time, but I need you to tell me how I can contact Jack and the Doctor. I can see them in my mind – there must be some way to reach them!" Gwen asked, almost pleading with the girl for an answer. The girl wrapped her hand around Gwen's arm. There was a spark and for a second, a green glow enveloped them both. A deluge of images rushed at Gwen, more powerful than anything she had seen before, and plunged her head along into darkness.

oOo

Gwen was beyond tired. She had never liked driving at night. Not knowing where she was going and keeping an eye on both the road and on Anne, who she had simply bundled into the passenger seat after their flight from the hub, was next to impossible.

Gwen carefully watched Anne for any signs of a change in her condition, while she was driving away from Cardiff as fast as possible. By now her breaking into Torchwood had probably been detected, but that wasn't the reason for her haste. Anne's time, even after Gwen had injected her with Owen's only sample of the virus, was limited and she needed her to get the cure to Jack and the Doctor.

When Anne had grabbed her arm at the morgue, something strange had happened. It was like she had reached straight into her brain. It had been much more intense than the visions she'd at the hospital. It had been like for a moment, she and Anne had actually been the same person. In the space of less than a second, she had absorbed all of Anne's memories. The happy memories of an ordinary little girl that had been pushed to commit terrible acts she barely understood and had had no power resisting. That little girl had died when Jack had shot her. Now, she was someone, something else – an empty body controlled by the hundred in the same way they had reached her earlier. The line between what Gwen wanted – to save Jack and what the hundred wanted – to cure the virus, was blurring and Gwen found herself acting against the small voice of reason in her head.

This part of her knew in how much trouble she would be in if the rest of Torchwood ever found out that she had revived Anne, stolen their only sample of the virus and taken off in a company car.

Anne hadn't regained consciousness after she had faded away in the morgue, but she was still breathing and hopefully would continue to do so until they reached their destination, wherever it was.

oOo

Gwen climbed out of the car and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the night. The drive through the night had passed like in a dream. It was only now that she stood surrounded by dark trees, the gravel of the country road beneath her trainers that she could be sure it had really happened.

Part of her, maybe her rational brain, wanted to laugh, to giggle madly in refusal of what she had done. She had stolen a car, kidnapped a dead girl who really was being controlled by aliens and was about to travel to another planet and all that based on a dream she had that Jack and the Doctor needed her help. She was losing her mind, Gwen was sure of it.

Still, the beauty of the night wasn't lost on her, only amplified by the profound sense of danger in anticipation of what she was about to do. She looked up at the stars for a moment, marvelling at what had been hidden from her all her life. She didn't just see the stars and the moon overhead, she saw a universe full of wonders, so breathtakingly beautiful that she couldn't look away. She knew she had come to the right place when she heard steps on the gravel road next to her. She didn't need to look to know who it was. When she felt Anne's hand taking hers, she turned her gaze away from the stars, both more frightened and more determined than she had ever been in her life.

"We need to go now," Anne urged her, tugging at her hand like the impatient little girl her body had once belonged to. Gwen followed her willingly as she led the way into the forest. The moon was partially obscured by the branches overhead, but the darkness didn't frighten her. She followed Anne's lead like in a trance, navigating past low-hanging branches and protruding roots with ease.

When they stepped out into a clearing, Gwen had to close her eyes for a moment. The moonlight was blindingly bright after the darkness of the woods. In its shine, she could see a beautiful sculpture of twisted iridescent metal. At least that's what it looked like at the first glance, before she realized it was a space craft. The shape and design were familiar from her dreams, but this was so much more real. Gwen cautiously stepped forwards, resting her hand on the hull. It was warm to the touch, vibrating with a soft hum like a living being. Stroking the metal, lost in the alien sensation, Gwen was startled when suddenly the surface beneath her hand vanished, revealing a hatch. It was fairly small. Without a word, Anne climbed inside and Gwen followed her, glad she was on the small aside, otherwise she might have gotten stuck.

The ship was cramped on the inside, barely big enough for one person. The walls were covered in displays and controls, appearing dormant until Anne touched a flat panel on the wall. The screens all around the craft came to life. Most of them were filled with alien characters that were oddly familiar to Gwen. If she looked at them long enough, the meaning simply seemed to drift into her head, like she had always known it.

"You are connected to the hundred on a telepathic level," Anne explained, seemingly able to read Gwen's thoughts.

"Is that why I have been having those…visions? I'd been afraid I'd lost my mind," Gwen admitted.

"The visions are nothing to be scared of. It's our brains way of handling the huge amount of new experiences and knowledge. It is harder for you than it was for Anne. Her mind was much more open. It is understandable that you are a bit confused," the girl who used to be Anne told her.

"Anne found this place?" Gwen asked, trying to comprehend how it had all started.

"She was lured by a projection," Anne said. Suddenly another little girl stood outside in the clearing, waving at them through the hatch. "See?" The girl vanished as quickly has it had appeared. "It's just an illusion. Like our virtual world."

Anne turned to one of the panels, bringing up with looked like the dark landscape outside, As she manipulated the controls, the lights fizzed and flickered and several of the screens went dark.

"What is happening?" Gwen asked.

"We don't have much power left. With any luck the temporal ripple the ship came through is still open and hasn't moved too far away."

Minutes passed as Anne scanned through the dark world outside. Finally the screen blinked brightly. Anne grabbed Gwen by the hand.

"We have to hurry. There is a ripple a few hundred feet from here, but it could be closing any second now."

They jumped out of the ship and tore through the nightly forest. Anne had taken the lead and Gwen did her best to keep up. She nearly tripped over roots several times and branches scratched her face and hands.

She saw the ripple a second before they reached it. It looked like air vibrating in the summer heat. Before Gwen could ask any questions, Anne had pulled her in, holding her hand tight as they fell into the darkness.

oOo

Jack's head hurt, but that was not the only thing that was troubling him, even if one could overlook the whole being prisoners of the Daleks part.

Rubbing his eyes, Jack leaned back from the computer terminal. The computers were the only thing that resembled the level of technology Jack would have expected of a race capable of engineering a nano-virus. The rest of the lab was as dilapidated as the rest of the underground complex. The metal walls of the room were corroded; the pipes running along them were leaking water. The place didn't seem like anyone had been taking care of it for a long time. A few buckets stood under the biggest leaks in the pipes, but in other places, water was allowed to simply drip on the floor, flowing down a drain in the center of the room. The air was musty, to the point of being suffocating

At first, Jack had chalked up his headache and the flashes of colour across his vision on the lack of air, food and rest, but they were becoming more persistent. They were becoming harder to block out. It took more and more conscious effort to keep his attention on the stream of data that was flowing across the screen of the terminal. Try as he might, he couldn't block them out and that worried even him. What worried him more and confirmed his nagging suspicions was the faint silver shine spreading over his arm. He couldn't see any obvious signs of the virus on the Doctor, but he had no idea what it would look like in an alien.

He could tell that the Doctor wasn't doing well. He'd been barely been able to keep on his feet when he had returned from the hibernation units with Iyan the mechanic, who, as they had learned, maintained almost all the systems in the underground complex. The Doctor's borrowed tee-shirt was soaked with blood on the back, and Jack could only imagine that every move had to be agonizing.

While Iyan and the Doctor had been gone, Arin had shown Jack what was left of their records. They seemed to date back about four hundred years in human terms, or at least that was the figure the TARDIS supplied him with. For such a long time, there was pitifully little left. At least the Doctor appeared to have been somewhat successful. Jack still couldn't quite tell, but Iyan had looked pleased when they had returned.

"Have you made any progress, Doctor?" Arin asked.

"Your systems are in quite a bad state." The Doctor swayed and sat down on one of the bunks that lined the far wall. "But I would be able to make some adjustments that would allow you to run things more efficiently. There is only so much room for improvement, but I can get you a few more months out of the units."

"You haven't made the modifications yet?" Arin cried angrily. "Iyan, you were ordered to see that he complies with our agreement."

Iyan didn't meet Arin's eyes when he replied. "I saw how he repaired the coolant leek in sector 17 in seconds. He told me what else he could do, if we let him modify one of the chambers for his friend."

"And you agreed to this?" Arin was furious. The two guards Arin had ordered to keep watch over the Doctor seemed to shrink back in fear.

"She will die, if we don't help her; is that what you want? Let someone else die, after we have already lost so many? We will be no better….than the Daleks." Iyan at first cut him off, then he finished. Jack had the impression that he had originally wanted to say something else, but had then thought better of it.

"You are a disgrace to your ancestors!" Arin pulled out his weapon and shot Iyan. "We won't waste air on a traitor." Iyan fell backwards, a charred hole in his chest. Arin turned to the two frightened guards, brandishing his weapon at them. "I won't tolerate disobedience, not when we are this close."

Jack and the Doctor had watched the exchange in shock.

"Then you won't have any choice but to hope that the Daleks come through for you." The Doctor got up on wobble legs, bracing himself on the walls. "Because we will not help you kill."

"Doctor, the cure will be saving the lives of everyone on this planet. How can you call this murder?" Arin asked in a gentle voice that belied his violent acts just seconds ago.

"Oh, yes. You know we'd figure this out eventually. That's why you infected us. You thought it would ensure our co-operation, make us blind to anything but out own survival," the Doctor went on. Jack grew concerned. The Doctor seemed feverish, talking even faster than normally, words almost tumbling into one another as he was leaning hard against one of the walls.

What he'd said about them being infected – Jack fervently hoped it wasn't true, but the Doctor's darkened eyes and ashen skin spoke to the contrary, even if he had been trying to deny the same signs in himself.

"You are our last chance. We don't have a choice," Arin replied impassively.

"You mean we don't have a choice. The Doctor is right, you infected us with this thing," Jack said, wishing for a mirror right now.

Arin seemed to read his mind. "It appears that you are one of the few who develops only mild symptoms that do no necessarily lead to death, Captain Harkness. You are in luck, but I doubt you would see it that way."

"And why is that?" Jack asked, keeping a careful eye on the Doctor.

"You will be here to watch as your friend is consumed by the virus. And I will tell you that death from the virus is agonizing. The physical changes you are seeing, it is reported that they cause unparalleled pain. The pain is so great that they are eventually driven to kill each other in the most violent and horrific fashion possible."

"How long does he have?" Jack asked.

"I cannot say. When the virus was released in the accident, over ninety-five percent of the population was killed within a day. But that is an estimate based on our physiology. It may well be different for you."

"I'm getting the impression it is going to be a lot shorter for the Doctor. You made a mistake when you infected us. If anyone is going to figure this out before your power runs out, it is the Doctor."

"Don't count me out yet." The Doctor sat up from the bunk where he'd been resting. "This psychic network of yours – it is powerful! Really amazing work. Shame that it's all going to end in a few hours," the Doctor proclaimed enthusiastically and jumped to his feet. For a moment, Jack thought he was going to fall over straight on his face, but the Doctor was steady on his feet.

"Doctor?" Jack asked, torn between worry for the Doctor and worry about what he'd just said. The part about it all ending in a few hours didn't have a good ring to it. But the Doctor ignored him and prattled on.

"You really did think that infecting us with the nano-virus would get you what you wanted, didn't you? This virus, you have been building your entire society around it for four hundred years. You actually used it to create the psychic network. Without the virus, there would be no network, no artificial landscape for those in the hibernation pods to stroll through. All of this is going to end when you find the cure."

"That is very perceptive of you, Doctor."

"It's not so difficult to figure out once you manage to dial yourself into the psychic network. You created this so you would be able to use the collective resources to find a cure for the virus. And by infecting us, you gave us access to those resources, if you wanted it or not. Can't have one without the other. The question is – is that what you wanted to do?" The Doctor stabbed a finger at the Arin's chest, earning him a confused stare from Jack.

"What…." Arin began, but the Doctor had already continued his rant.

"You had to realize that we'd find out the truth, unless you were hoping it would kill us before that. There was no lab accident. The virus was designed to kill. Genocide, that was what you were planning. Only it didn't work, as you told us, the nano-bots crossed the species-barrier. You were forced underground." The Doctor paused, as if he had to carefully consider what he was going to say next.

"Think, think! Have to concentrate!" he mumbled to himself as he was pacing up and down. Suddenly, he broke out into a mad grin.

"Those who weren't infected, that's you, you have been working as slaves ever since. You have been stuck down here and trying to get back on your feet; you spent all your time maintaining all the machinery down here. So much time that you don't even have time to maintain this place. It's all falling apart. And now your energy is running out. Energy you need to survive. Energy for your protein synthesizers, your water recycling system, life support. It's the perfect plan!" The Doctor laughed. "They are all going to die! The cure is going to kill them! And us! And it will be my fault."

The Doctor's pacing had grown increasingly frantic as he spoke and Jack was starting to wonder if he even knew what he was talking about. He was used to the Doctor's bursts of manic energy and enthusiasm, but he had never seen the Doctor quite this wired. What he was saying didn't make any sense, at least not to Jack and while the Doctor could be hard to follow on a good day, Jack grew more worried about him. They needed the Doctor at the top of his game.

"I think you should rest, Doctor. It is clear that you are not well." Arin put into words what Jack had only been thinking.

The Doctor paused, turning slowly to face Arin. His skin looked almost like Rose's earlier.

"Maybe you are right," the Doctor said quietly and proceeded to faint clean away.

"I'm sorry, you must return to work now." Arin didn't spare a look at the Doctor.

"But we cannot…" One of the guards hurried to the Doctor's side, but before he got there, Arin shot him in the back.

Jack turned away from the Doctor and back to Arin. "You are a cruel bastard. How many more people are you going to kill, just because they won't do what you want?"

"As many as necessary, Captain Harkness. Now, I suggest you get back to work."

"I won't." Jack stood to face Arin. He saw the insanity burning in Arin's eyes as he pulled the trigger.

oOo

Gwen woke in complete darkness. Fearing that she was blind, she blinked her eyes, but her surroundings remained covered in blackness. Slightly panicked, she sat up, examining the floor with her hand. It was metal, but rough and worn. The air smelled musty, of rust and stale water. She was somewhere inside, a basement maybe?

"Anne?" Gwen whispered, suddenly remembering that she hadn't been alone.

A green glow flickered and illuminated their surroundings a second later. Anne stood only a few feet from Gwen, something green and brilliantly sparkling in her hand. It was only a handful of material, but its glow was more powerful than the strongest flashlight. They were in the underground tunnels that Gwen had seen in her visions earlier. Now that she was there in person, the atmosphere was even more oppressive. Gwen hadn't been conscious for more than five minutes, but she already craved fresh air.

"We have to find Jack!" she told Anne.

Anne only nodded. "We are outside the protected area. You need to get through the force shield to get to the research laboratory. You remember the codes?"

"Yes, let's hurry." Gwen took Anne by the hand. But Anne released her hand and shook her head. "I cannot accompany you. This body is weakening. Without another injection of nano-bots, it will fail."

"What can I do? Is there any way to get more….nano-bots?"

"Only at the research laboratory. They are stored in a vault there," Anne told her weakly.

"Then…" Gwen thought for a moment. She was torn between helping Anne and helping Jack and the stranger. "Can you wait for me here?"

"Go," Anne seemed to read her thoughts. "By delivering the cure, you will save all of the hundred."

"But what about you?" Gwen knew Anne wasn't the little girl she looked like, but Gwen couldn't bear the thought of leaving her now, not when they had come so far. When she had touched Anne, when they had shared, she had sensed how much Anne longed to go home. "I can't leave you behind here, all alone."

Anne grabbed her wrist again. It still came as a surprise, but this time Gwen was able to handle the connection better. For a moment, she felt like she was going to pass out again, but then she recovered.

They weren't in the tunnel anymore. Instead they were standing in large square, filled with people going about their business. The air was filled with the buzzing of countless voices and the fresh smell of fruits floated across the air.

In Anne's place was a young woman, about Gwen's own age. She smiled at Gwen and her smile was the same as Anne's.

"Thank you…for bringing me home," she said, the voice echoing in Gwen's mind even when the square, the smells, the people and everything else had faded and Gwen was alone again, in the tunnel. Where Anne had been, all that was left was a small heap of glowing green powder that was slowly dissipating into the air in glowing flecks of green. A smile spread over Gwen's face and she started running.

TBC


	10. Chapter 9

Arin's back was turned when Jack regained consciousness. Knowing that moving would hurt like hell, he delayed for a moment, taking in his surroundings. The Doctor was lying on the metal floor a few meters further away. To Jack's great relief, the infection didn't seem to have progressed any further. Jack rolled over to glance at his watch, having lost all sense of time since having been shot that first time in the TARDIS. Around six hours had passed since they had left Rose behind in their cell. Jack felt guilty for leaving her there, knowing they had signed her death warrant when they did so. They probably wouldn't have been able to do anything more for her if they had stayed behind. But at least, Rose wouldn't be dying alone that way.

Jack scrambled to his feet. Arin must have heard his movements, because by the time Jack was upright, Arin stood facing him, gun trained on him.

"Captain Harkness," Arin said, his voice was loaded with malice. "I thought you were a smart man, but apparently I was wrong."

"And what led you to believe that?" Jack asked.

"You posses the most precious thing in the universe and yet – you waste your time with friends that you'll have to watch die."

"You are one of the original settlers!" Jack suddenly realized. "Somehow you managed to survive, but now you are dying and you are afraid!" Jack said triumphantly.

"Yes, I am dying indeed. But I will hold on as long as I need to see my enemies die," Arin told him.

"Don't count on me to help you," Jack told him again. But for all the determination he put in his voice, Jack was wondering if he hadn't just signed their death warrants. By refusing to work, he gave Arin and his merry bunch no reason not to turn them over to the Daleks. There was a limit on how many more rounds with the Daleks he, and especially the Doctor, would be able to stand.

"Then I will turn over your friend to the Daleks. He isn't of any use to us anymore, but the Daleks probably won't mind that he isn't in the best shape."

Jack's heart sank. He, who never planned for failure and usually didn't even admit that the possibility existed, had to concede that they were backed against the wall. Failure was starting to look pretty likely.

"I guess they won't. Go ahead, I bet that the Daleks will be very happy when they find out that you tried to go behind their backs. It's me and the Doctor they want. They are finished with you," Jack ranted, not really having any hopes of talking Arin out of turning them over, but trying to give himself time to weigh his options.

He could try to fight his way out. He was outnumbered and outgunned, but he might just be able to jump Arin and wrestle his gun away from him. He had hinted that their guns might work against the Daleks, but that might just have been another lie to get them to co-operate.

Arin didn't seem distracted by Jack's ramblings, but then, a deafening alarm suddenly went off. It was the distraction Jack had been waiting for. He lunged at Arin, bringing them both down hard. The gun clattered to the floor, but Arin was still holding it in a vice-like grip. Jack grabbed his wrist and slammed it repeatedly into the metal floor. Arin relinquished his grip on the gun and it skittered away from them, out of reach for both of them. He used Jack's momentary distraction to deliver a punch to his jaw. The impact of the punch made Jack's ears ring. Before he fully realized what was happening, Arin had gained the upper hand, by landing two more well-placed blows with a strength that belied his skinny frame. Jack was fighting to hold on to consciousness. He knew he was going to lose this one when suddenly Arin collapsed, landing motionlessly on top of him.

Someone pushed the guard off of him, and Jack really wanted to see who had saved his skin, but silver spots were already clouding his vision. Oblivion was calling out to him. The last thing he heard was a familiar female voice calling his name.

"Jack?"

oOo

Rage, pent-up for centuries and nourished by the inability to act on it, had been unleashed when the Hundred had realized the worker's plot for what it was. Gwen was swept away by the surge of emotion. She was forced to watch as she saw herself pick up the gun that had fallen to the floor in the struggle. She saw herself take aim at her unknowing target and pull the trigger that sent a deadly bolt straight into the man's back.

Gwen felt sick, but seeing the man go down only fuelled her need for vengeance. They would pay for their betrayal, with their lives. She walked over to the computer terminal and switched off the alarm. Ignoring the warnings that were flashing across the screen, warning that power failure was imminent, she brought up the surveillance system. The Daleks were on the move. There were only three of them but each one was deadly on its own. The workers were trying to hold them off, but they were being slaughtered. They didn't stand a chance. It had been inevitable from the start. The Hundred had observed the Daleks' every move, had watched them use Rose and Anne to lure the Doctor into a trap. She had watched them torture the Doctor. The workers had betrayed the Daleks and were now feeling the force of their hatred. A horror show was playing out on the surveillance monitor. Gwen wanted to look away from all the carnage, but she was powerless to even move her head an inch. The Hundred were going to die. Once the Daleks were finished with the workers, they would come for the Hundred as well. Still, they took pleasure in seeing the Daleks carry out their revenge.

It felt like an eternity to Gwen, but it could really only have been minutes until the workers were gone. Just as soon as it was over, Gwen was once again in control of her body. Their connection wasn't severed, but without the intense emotion, the ability of the Hundred to control her was weakening.

The locks had been no problem for the Daleks. They were temporarily held off by the strong energy barriers that surrounded the entire core of the underground complex, Already, the outer barrier was weakening. It was only a matter of time until it collapsed. There were interior force shields around important areas such as the transmission tower, the hibernation vault and the control room, but it was only a matter of time until the Daleks broke through them as well. All the power reserves in the complex would probably not be enough to hold off the Daleks indefinitely, but it would buy them time. Hopefully, there would be enough time to reprogram the transmission tower to send the blast that would kill the virus. If she could pull power from the transmission tower to the force shields, leaving just enough power so that the blast area would cover the entire core of the underground complex, she might be able to make the modifications before they all died at the hands of the Daleks. They were still going to die, but she had promised Anne that she would try her best to deliver the cure to her people.

Gwen switched from the surveillance feed to the control console. With intuitive ease, she accessed the power grid controls, her fingers dancing over the foreign symbols on the keypad as if she were at her laptop at home. When she suddenly found her way blocked, Gwen realized that she wasn't alone in the control system. Every move she made was being blocked – blocked by the Hundred. Over centuries of existence separated from their physical bodies, they had obviously learned to use their link with the system controlling the underground complex. They hadn't regretted to see the workers die. The workers had become superfluous and just as they had turned against the Hundred, the Hundred had now turned against them. The workers died by the instrument of their betrayal. They had allied themselves with the Daleks in an attempt to rewrite history and the Daleks had wiped out their future.

Gwen ignored the error messages popping up on screen. If the front door was blocked, she could still come in through the back. She was using the knowledge of the Hundred against them. She was at the disadvantage, however. The Hundred could control the system by mere power of thought while she had to rely on manual input. She had not realized just how far the power of the Hundred went until a green spark of energy shot across the keyboard, delivering a painful shock to her fingers.

"Ow, that really hurt." Gwen inspected her burnt fingers.

"You shouldn't have done that." Gwen whirled around. The man from the police station was coming towards her, an expression of rage on his face. He was in the early stages of being taken over by the virus, but something was wrong. He seemed unsteady on his feet, his movements jerky as if he was fighting an invisible struggle for control.

Gwen took a step back, backing into the computer terminal, trying to figure out what to do. The virus gave its victims superhuman strength. She no longer had that advantage. She still had the connection to the Hundred, but no conscious control over it. Then she remembered something Anne had done back in the morgue at Torchwood. She lunged forwards and grabbed the wrists of the man. The man jerked, stumbling backwards. For a moment, he stood still before he leapt into action. Pulling out a penlight-like object, he got to work on the terminal. The penlight glowed blue, and the terminal came back to life.

He turned around. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

"I'm Gwen."

"Thank you, Gwen. You might just have saved our lives. Of course there are still the Daleks and the Hundred out to get us," the Doctor told her cheerfully. Gwen stared at him, wondering if the virus had gotten to the Doctor's mind.

"That's…reassuring," Gwen finally managed, but the Doctor had already turned back to the computer. However, he fared no better than Gwen. Another, more massive surge of energy leapt across the keypad and screen. The Doctor jumped back, blowing on his burnt fingers. Smoke was now rising from the terminal.

"That's one option down then," the Doctor announced, still sounding awfully cheerful. "But, we still have this." He waved his penlight in front of Gwen. "You try to hold off the Daleks as long as you can. I'm going down to the transmission tower to try to send the blast directly from there." The Doctor headed for the door.

"Wait." Jack, whom Gwen had temporarily forgotten about with all that had been going on, came up behind the Doctor. Jack looked like hell. His face was smeared with blood with impressive bruising forming underneath.

"Remember, they can't kill me." He held out his hand for the Doctor's penlight. The Doctor fiddled with it for a few seconds. He pulled out a second object that looked much like a silver hourglass and gave it a few twists before nodding in satisfaction.

"That should do it." He handed both of the objects to Jack. "Who know what to do?"

Jack nodded.

"Be careful. We'll hold off the Daleks as long as we can," the Doctor told Jack.

"See you later." With that, Jack was out the door.

"He really can't die, can he?" Gwen asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. Let's hope not."

Gwen nodded. "How are we going to hold off the Daleks? They are going to break through the force shield any moment."

"We can't stop them from doing that, but we can delay them. We need a distraction."

"What is going to distract the Daleks?"

"Water."

"The pipes." Gwen recalled the leaking pipes that ran through the tunnels. "But how are we going to get there?"

"Ventilation shafts. They are too small for the Daleks to get through…or for me, for that matter. But you should fit through. Do you know what to do?"

"I think so," Gwen replied hesitantly. "I don't know how, but I know. But it's fading though, like it was just a dream."

"The residual effects of the virus are wearing off. But now, hurry."

The Doctor climbed on top of the bunk and removed the covering from the ventilation shaft. With some assistance from the Doctor, Gwen managed to get inside.

TBC


	11. Chapter 10

oOo

Gwen wasn't claustrophobic, but still she felt immensely relieved when she could feel the faint draft of air indicating that she had almost made it. A minute later, her hand touched the grille in front of her. She pushed and it clattered to the floor beneath. The sound echoed through the tunnels, no doubt alerting everyone in the vicinity to her presence. Gwen inched her way forwards, trying to feel how far it was to the floor, but her arms were too short. The impact of the grille had sounded like it had fallen pretty far down. Gwen was trying to figure out how the get out of the shaft without a nasty landing on the metal floor beneath. When she heard the sound of energy blasts in the distance, coming nearer, Gwen knew she had to act. The Daleks had to have broken through the outer force shield and were on their way to kill them. Gwen took a deep breath and took the plunge.

The fall was a lot shorter than she had anticipated, but the landing was still hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She had tried to break her fall with her hands. While she succeeded on not hitting her head, she could hear the snap of bones when her right wrist gave. It was the same wrist she had broken in the car accident only a day earlier, but when she had become infected with the virus, the nano-bots had repaired the damage. Unfortunately, Gwen no longer had that advantage. She got to her feet, cradling her injured wrist. The pain was fierce, but she forced herself to continue.

From where she had exited the shaft to the main safety valve, it was only a few meters. Gwen ran the entire way, hearing the Daleks' efforts to break through the interior force shield about two hundred feet down the tunnel. The green glow of their deadly rays was the only illumination in the otherwise dark tunnels, allowing Gwen to find her way to the valve without incident. Gwen kept listening for the Daleks, worried that they had broken through the force shield.

The main safety valve was exactly where Gwen had known it was. The valve was a few feet down from the water reservoir where the water that had passed through the recycler was collected. If the pressure in the reservoir tank ever got too great, the safety valve was designed to release the excess pressure. The structure of the tank had weakened over the centuries, forcing them to continue adjusting the critical pressure downwards. It wouldn't take a lot of pressure to rupture the tank.

Closing the valve would have taken enormous strength with two good hands, but with one wrist broken it was a near impossible task. Gwen struggled to turn the valve even a fraction of an inch, but it didn't budge. The rough corroded metal cut into her skin, leaving bloody scratches in its wake. Gwen stepped back, panting from pain and exertion. Tears of frustration were starting to form in her eyes. Something so simple and she couldn't do it. It didn't matter anymore. She would never be able to close the valve, in or out of time. Gwen let herself slide down against the wall. It was then that she noticed something in the pocket of her jacket. Curious, Gwen pulled out the object. When she realized what it was, a huge grin spread over her face. It was the blaster she had used to shoot Arin. She had to have put it in her pocket without noticing. Gwen set it to the highest setting and took aim.

oOo

The shot fused the valve shut at the first try. Gwen checked the power indicator on the blaster. There was about a third left, enough for maybe two or three shots at full power. Keeping an eye on the progress of the Daleks, Gwen stood and waited. She wasn't sure what she was waiting for, but somehow she had expected something more spectacular. She was wondering whether she should have another shot at the valve, when she started to hear a rumbling sound coming from the piping. Pretty soon it felt like the entire tunnel was vibrating. The pressure was building up fast. Gwen hurried back to the hatch that led into the ventilation shaft. Gwen took one look at it and realized she couldn't get back in there, not with one broken wrist. She wasn't strong enough to pull herself up with only one hand. Gwen looked around, but there was nothing she could use as a stepping stone. She might have been able to use the pipes that ran along the wall to get higher up, but with the pressure that was building, she was afraid that by putting any weight on them, the corroded metal would burst right there.

With a soft 'pop' a fissure appeared in the water tank. Gwen stared at the water, escaping from the tank. She was trapped. On one side there were the Daleks trying to break through the force shield, on the other side the water tank that could blow apart any moment.

The tunnel she was in was branching off to the side, but that tunnel would only lead her deeper into the complex which would be flooded in a matter of minutes. Already the water had reached the point where she stood. Gwen started running, heading for the center of the complex.

oOo

Gwen couldn't outrun the water. She had only gained a few dozen inches on the stream of water, when she heard the explosion. Within seconds, the stream of water turned into a torrential river. Gwen was clinging to a piece of piping with her good hand. It was all she could do to prevent being swept off of her feet.

The water was rising fast. The tunnel where she was clinging to the wall was filling up and there was no sign that the flow of water was going to stop. The water recycler had to be pumping out water, trying to fill the emptying tank. It wouldn't stop until they ran out of power. But when that happened, all life support was going to shut down and they were going to suffocate before they had the chance to drown. It was ironic, but unless the Daleks broke through the force shield soon, their distraction was going to kill her.

Clinging to the wall, the water rising fast past her chest, Gwen wondered if the Doctor had known their plan was going to backfire like this. She didn't know the first thing about him, yet she had trusted him with her life. And where had it gotten her?

Gwen looked out on the expanse of water surrounding her. The green light from the distant firefight glinted off the ripples, making the water look like a solid black mass. Gwen watched, for a moment lost in the beauty of the deadly spectacle. Then she let go of the piece of pipe and started swimming.

It wasn't as hard as she had thought and Gwen had the most powerful motivation. The pain from her broken wrist didn't matter and neither did the cold of the water. Gwen was headed into the darkness, letting herself be carried by the force of the water deeper into the complex. It wasn't long until the last glimmer of green light had vanished and Gwen had only the flow of the water left to guide her. It was strange, but she wasn't afraid. She was cold, alone and in the dark, with the water rising higher every second, but she wasn't afraid. The last twenty-four hours had been the most incredible of her life. She had seen and felt things she had never thought possible.

When the water rose ever higher, filling the entire tunnel with water, Gwen thought of home. Gwen pulled in a last big gulp of air before the tunnel was totally submerged. At first, she could see nothing under water. Everything was swathed in cold darkness. Then, there was a faint glow coming from up ahead. She thought her mind was playing tricks on her, but when the yellow glow became stronger, she realized it for what it was.

The tunnel she was in had to be directly connected to the core chamber where the transmission tower stood. The power had gone out everywhere, except the transmission tower. With that realization, Gwen started swimming again.

Her lungs were burning and her wrist sent stabs of agony up along her arm, but she kept going, closing in on the yellow light.

oOo

Gwen made it into the core chamber with what little strength she had left. But it wasn't enough. The water had already risen too high. Try as she might she couldn't get to the surface. Her limbs were too heavy; all her strength was used up. The world was growing dark around her once again and Gwen let her eyes drift shut.

A weight took hold of her body, but instead of dragging her down, she felt herself rising. Before she knew what was happening, she broke through the surface. She took the first desperate breaths with her eyes still closed. Once the need for oxygen was no longer all consuming, she opened them to find out what had saved her at the last moment.

It was Jack. He was in the water next to her.

"Gwen?"

Gwen could only nod, while she was gulping for air.

"Can you hold on to this?"

Gwen realized that they were just beside the transmission tower itself. It stood tall in a silo that was slowly filling with water. There were metal rungs in the side of the tower, allowing maintenance to be carried out. Her hands were numb both from the near drowning and the long immersion in cold water, but she managed to wrap her good arm around one of the rungs.

"Just keep climbing up," Jack told her.

"What about you?" Gwen finally managed, still out of breath.

"Setting off the blast, hopefully," Jack told her and dove back under water.

Gwen looked up. She couldn't see the ceiling from where she was. That was good; there was plenty of space for the water to flow into. Gwen had finally started to breathe normally again and get some feeling back into her limbs when the flow of water suddenly stopped. The lights flickered and went out a few seconds later and Gwen realized that they had to be out of power.

She could still hear the hum of the transmission tower, but no doubt it would soon go silent as well, leaving Jack with only a little time to trigger the blast. Once again immersed in total darkness, Gwen could do nothing but wait.

oOo

The dark silence was broken by a sound that was unlike anything Gwen had ever heard. It was like a mechanical groan, wheezing and grating, that seemed to come from nowhere. Scared, she clung to her metal rung.

The slow blinking light blinded her at first, but when her eyes adjusted Gwen got the shock of her life. Hovering there a few inches above the surface of the water was a blue police box. Gwen was still staring at it when its door flew open. The Doctor leaned out, extending a hand towards her.

"Come on!" Gwen let go of the rung and pushed towards the hovering police box. The Doctor grasped her hand tight and pulled her inside.

Gwen slumped to the ground inside. For a moment she was busy catching her breath, and then she realized she wasn't in a box at all. What had looked like a box was actually many times larger on the inside. They were in a huge hexagonal hall with a high vaulted ceiling. The whole architecture had an organic look to it, almost as if they were inside a living organism. The Doctor was busy on what looked like a large hexagonal console in the center. Gwen joined him there, still not able to stop staring at everything around her. The Doctor was busying himself with the console, pushing buttons, flipping switches and turning dials.

"What about Jack?" Gwen finally asked.

"He'll be along in a moment," the Doctor explained cryptically. "Hold on!"

No sooner had he spoken than the ship started to shake violently. Gwen was thrown to the floor, once again painfully impacting on her wrist. She tried to hold on to the metal grille that covered the floor to keep from being thrown around freely. The turbulence was steadily increasing and sparks started flying from the console, when there was a sudden 'bang' and everything filled with light for a moment. Gwen was blinded, tears running from her eyes. When she could finally see again, she saw Jack, sprawled on the floor. He was lying perfectly still. Gwen inched over to him, fearing the worst. Jack looked like hell, his pale face showing off the bruises from his fight with Arin. His right sleeve and hand were burnt. But his chest was rising and falling slowly, allying Gwen's fear for the moment.

The Doctor crouched down next to Jack. He gently pried open his injured hand, taking the silver hourglass and putting it back into his own pocket. Then he got to his feet again and walked away, as if Jack no longer held any interest. Gwen watched him go back to the console, anger rising in her at the Doctor's indifferent treatment of Jack when Jack suddenly started coughing, tearing her attention off the Doctor.

Gwen helped Jack sit up to make it easier for him to get the water out of his lungs.

"I hate drowning," he groaned once he caught his breath. He made to get to his feet. If it hadn't been for Gwen catching him he would have fallen down again.

"You should know where the wardrobe is. Pick out something dry before you two catch a cold," the Doctor told them with his back still turned to them.

The idea sounded heavenly to Gwen. She couldn't wait to get out of her wet, dirty and bloody clothes. But Jack hesitated.

"What about Rose? We can't leave her behind…even if she's…"

"Jack." The Doctor turned to them with a benign smile on his face. "As you surely know, the TARDIS is a time machine. We can be back in the cell and fetch Rose moments after we left."

"Doctor, I love you!" Jack said, laughing, and planted a kiss on the man's lips.

The Doctor wiped a hand over his lips. "Don't make me reconsider."

TBC


	12. Chapter 11

The TARDIS was even larger than it had appeared at first glance. The console room was only one of what were probably dozens if not hundreds of rooms.

Jack had suddenly fainted after planting a kiss on the Doctor. Not only had the Doctor gotten Gwen a fresh set of clothes in the right size, but, accompanied by some grumbling, he had also helped her settle Jack amidst the pillows of a large couch, in what looked like a cross between a old-fashioned living room and an art museum, thrown together haphazardly.

A noise made her turn in her huge purple armchair and she saw Rose leaning in the doorway. It was the first time Gwen actually looked at her. At the police station she had been too occupied with Anne at first, and then, Rose had already been infected. Now restored to health, Rose looked much younger to Gwen than she had first appeared. So young that Gwen wondered where her parents were and if they knew what their daughter was doing. But then again, she had no idea if Rose was even from Earth. The Doctor certainly wasn't.

"Hey," Rose waved.

"Hi," Gwen said and Rose stepped in closer. "How is Jack?"

"The Doctor seems to think he'll be fine." Gwen related the information the Doctor had given her.

"Look," Rose said, perching on the armrest of another huge armchair – a light green one. "I'm sorry. For what happened at the police station. I…"

"Don't apologize. When I was infected….I did some things I'm really not proud of." Gwen blushed at the memory. With everything that had happened since, it hadn't quite sunk in yet, but she'd eventually have to face the rest of Torchwood.

"You figured out how to cure the virus, didn't you?"

"Yes, "Gwen said and nodded, not relishing the memory. "But it was an accident."

Rose said nothing.

"When I was infected with this virus, I was more scared than I'd ever been. I was so afraid I'd turn into…"

"Me?" Rose asked sharply.

"I was afraid I was going to hurt someone. And then we were locked into this cooler. There was no way out. I didn't know what else to do, so I took Jack's blaster and shot myself." There was a pause when neither of them spoke. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"Because you need someone to talk to. Someone who's been there. No one back home would even believe this story," Rose said and smiled.

"You're from Earth?" Gwen asked, a bit surprised. Rose sounded like she was from Earth, but for some reason, to her everyone was speaking English. No doubt some technological trick. One they could use at Torchwood, she thought idly.

"London. Born and raised," Rose told her.

"And the Doctor?" Gwen couldn't help but ask, but Rose only shrugged.

"He blew up the place where I worked," Rose said, as if it would explain everything.

"You don't know who he really is, then?" Gwen asked.

"No," Rose shook her head. "He's just the Doctor."

"How do you know you can trust him, if you know nothing about him?" Gwen asked, no longer thinking about the Doctor, but about Jack. What did she really know about Jack? Was any of what he told her true?

"He saved my life. I know I can trust him," Rose simply said, getting up from the edge of the armchair. "I'll see you later."

oOo

Rose opened the TARDIS door and stepped outside. Her side and arm were still a bit sore, but whatever magic the Doctor had done hadn't even left a scar. However, the mental scars of what had happened had been weighing heavily on her mind ever since she had woken up in the cell after the virus had worn off. She needed to talk to the Doctor.

The TARDIS was parked in an expansive courtyard, all built of white marble-like stone. Greco-Roman columns surrounded the structure which itself was perched atop a tall hill that overlooked a large city, all built from the same white stone, but heavily overgrown by plants. Rose walked over to the western wall, where what looked like a balcony was carved into stone, hanging freely hundreds of feet above the city. Rose leaned against the railing, enjoying the dizzying rush of being so high up.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Rose turned around and saw the Doctor standing behind her.

"I needed some fresh air." Rose said, blushing. She still found she couldn't look the Doctor in the eye. Every time she looked at him, she was back in the room with the Doctor and the Daleks. They had tortured him. She had tortured him. Every detail was alive in her memory--she could hear the Doctor scream, feel the smile that formed on her face even while there was a little voice inside her head screaming for her to stop. Her hand curled around the crumpled piece of paper that she'd found in her pocket. 'Trust me' – that had been the two words scribbled on it. She knew she could trust the Doctor, but she couldn't trust herself anymore.

"Don't do this, Rose." The Doctor sidled up to her, his eyes on the city beneath.

"I won't go back. The Hundred need any help they can get to get back on their feet now that the Daleks are gone. I already spoke to Alwarin about it. I'm going to stay," Rose said, forcing herself to look anywhere except at the Doctor.

"What about Jackie and Mickey? Have you thought about them, Rose?" the Doctor asked her sharply.

"They don't know what I did," Rose said. "I don't want them to know that I'm a monster."

"I can't tell you what to do," the Doctor admitted. "But Jackie would kill me if I came back without you."

"Don't get me wrong," Rose said. "Travelling with you was the most incredible thing I've ever done. I never wanted it to stop. Never. I wanted to stay with you forever. But I can't, not anymore."

"Rose." The Doctor turned around and grabbed her by the shoulders. "I would never have taken the TARDIS back in time to get you from that cell if I thought you had any choice in what you did. If you really want to stay here with the Hundred, you explain it to Jackie. Then I'll take you back here, if that's still what you want."

oOo

Gwen found herself dozing off despite her attempts to stay awake. Slowly, the events of the past two days were catching up with her. She had no feeling of how long it had been since the morning she had said good-bye to Rhys at their apartment. It could have been yesterday or it could have been a week ago, but she felt like it had been at least this long since she had really slept – normal, healthy sleep, not being knocked unconscious or on the verge of freezing to death. Just plain, simple sleep. But she couldn't rest until she knew if Jack was going to be all right. The Doctor had seemed pretty certain that he would, but Gwen wanted to see for herself. Gwen had almost succeeded in falling asleep against her will when Jack's voice startled her awake.

"You know, I thought I was going to wake up dead this time."

"Don't say that," Gwen chided, but couldn't help smiling at the same time. "The Doctor thinks you'll be fine."

Jack moved to sit up, but winced in pain. When Gwen looked alarmed, he explained.

"I might not be able to die, but it still hurts. That time, I got shot in the head, I had a migraine for days," Jack told her lightly.

"About that, you haven't really explained why you can't die. You said something happened…" Gwen began, not really knowing how to approach the subject. It wasn't just the immortality, but everything. She almost felt like she hadn't known Jack at all, not the real Jack anyways.

"It didn't happen."

"What?"

"Time isn't fixed, Gwen. It's fluid. History can change. I met the Doctor almost a year ago, on Earth. But for him, our first meeting hasn't happened yet. And it won't, not anymore. I was travelling with the Doctor and Rose when I died for the first time and came back. Whatever made that happen, it won't happen now. Meeting the Doctor and Rose at the police station changed all that," Jack explained.

Gwen thought about it for a moment. "But you're still immortal. Anne killed you…"

"I know. I don't know how that can be, but I'm going to find out," Jack said, shaking his head sadly.

"This is really important to…,"Gwen began but was interrupted by a sound coming from the corridor. The Doctor stood in the hallway. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything. I just came to tell you that the TARDIS is ready to leave."

"Where are we going?" Gwen asked. She hadn't given the matter any thought. She had been so wrapped up in everything that had happened that she had forgotten all about going home.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Home would be nice," Gwen replied, speaking what was on her mind, not contemplating that there might be other possibilities as well.

"Sure." The Doctor nodded. "Home in time for breakfast?" he asked.

Gwen simply stared at him.

Jack laughed. "The TARDIS can go anywhere, anytime. Rhys won't have time to call missing persons." With the mention of the name, Gwen's face fell.

"I feel horrible for running away already," Gwen confessed "He's going to be worried sick and I have no idea what's going to happen to Torchwood now."

"You're going to be fine. Just keep an eye on everyone," Jack told her. "Most of the alien stuff isn't all that dangerous until you start messing with it, so be careful."

"So, you're not coming back with me." Gwen was disappointed, but not surprised.

Jack shook his head. "Not unless the Doctor is kicking me out."

"If we somehow managed in the future, I think we should be fine now," the Doctor said. "Still, I want to hear the entire story. Don't tell me I was fooled by you for a second."

"You weren't. I nearly wiped out all of humanity but Rose must have convinced you to save my life anyways."

"I want to hear it, from the start, now." The Doctor's voice was commanding and serious, but Gwen detected a sparkle of a smile in his eyes. He was starting to warm to Jack's charm.

oOo

Gwen quietly took the steps leading up to her apartment, trying not to wake the neighbours who had already complained about her coming and going at all ours of the night. For a moment Gwen panicked as she realized she didn't have her key, lost somewhere between the hospital and the TARDIS, but when she reached into the pocket of her borrowed jacket, she found her key and wallet right where they belonged, not a sign of water damage on it. Gwen's gaze lingered on the items, wondering if it hadn't all been some crazy dream after a night touring the bars. But it was real, she knew. Some things you just couldn't hallucinate, no matter how drunk you were. She turned the key in the lock and let herself in.

Quiet voices came from the television that was still running, even though Rhys had fallen asleep on the couch. Careful not to make any noise, Gwen tiptoed into the kitchen. She passed the window on her way and couldn't help but stop and take a look at the fading night sky. She had been somewhere out there. Out there where Jack, Rose and the Doctor travelled. Gwen wondered if she'd ever see any of them again. Saying good-bye had been hard. The Doctor had offered that she could stay aboard the TARDIS as well, but even having seen a tiny fraction of the things that were out there, she knew where she belonged. Unlike Jack, she belonged to this place in this time. There were people she cared about, people she loved, and she wouldn't abandon them. And there was work to be done. The rift was opening wider and wider, and there was no telling what else would be attracted through it like the Doctor's ship had been. They needed to be prepared.

Gwen walked away from the window and into the kitchen. She set a pot of water to boil, found a mug and the tin with instant coffee. It was barely dawn outside, but Gwen was already wide awake. She wasn't sure when she had really slept for the last time, but she felt oddly energized. She absently stirred in the instant coffee, before she realized caffeine wasn't a good idea if she already felt wired. She'd just set the cup aside, when she heard the shuffling of feet.

"Gwen! I didn't hear you come in. I've been up waiting for you, but I must have fallen asleep." Rhys yawned and pulled her into a hug.

"Some woman called, late last night. She was asking if you were home. Said you worked together," Rhys told her. "Did something happen at work?"

"Yes, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

A smile formed on Gwen's face as she realized something. "What do you think about calling in sick at work today?"

The End


End file.
